nd its phrases had a deftness which was
hardly native. He looked, if not a sad young man, then one conscious
always of sufficient reasons for sadness, but one came, after a time, to
see that the mood beneath was not melancholy. It had even its sprightly
side, which shone out irregularly in his glance and talk, from a sober
mean of amiable weariness.

Thorpe knew his extraordinary story--that of a poor tutor, earning his
living in ignorance of the fact that he had a birthright of any sort,
who had been miraculously translated into the heir, not only to an
ancient title but to vast collateral wealth. He had been born and reared
in France, and it was there that the heralds of this stupendous change
in his affairs had found him out. There was a good deal more to the
story, including numerous unsavoury legends about people now many years
dead, and it was impossible to observe the young Duke and not seem to
perceive signs that he was still nervously conscious of these legends.
The story of his wife--a serene, grey-eyed, rather silent young person,
with a pale face of some beauty, and with much purity and intellect--was
strange enough to match. She also had earned her own living, as a
private secretary or type-writing girl, or something of the sort, and
her husband had deliberately chosen her after he had come into his
title. One might study her very closely, however, and catch no hint that
these facts in any degree disconcerted her.

Thorpe studied her a good deal, in a furtive way, with a curiosity born
of his knowledge that the Duke had preferred her, when he might have
married his widowed cousin, who was now Thorpe's own wife. How he had
come to know this, he could never have told. He had breathed it in,
somehow, with the gossip-laden atmosphere of that one London season of
his. It was patent enough, too, that his wife--his Edith--had not only
liked this ducal youngster very much, but still entertained toward him
a considerable affection. She had never dissembled this feeling, and it
visibly informed her glance and manner now, at her own table, when she
turned to speak with him, where he sat at her right hand. Thorpe had
never dreamed of thinking ill of his wife's friendship, even when her
indifference to what he thought had been most taken for granted. Now
that this was all changed, and the amazing new glory of a lover had
enveloped him, he had a distinct delight in watching the myriad charming
phases of her kind manner,