Part 33 (1/2)

On the way home he talked for a while cheerfully; and since there was no intellectual gulf between them, they could talk to one another with perfect ease and understanding. Then he fell into a sudden panic.

”By Jove!” he cried, clutching at his moustache and missing it. ”I'd forgotten all about it! My sister--Lady Salkeld's coming home to-morrow!”

Pollyooly said nothing. She looked at him with enquiring eyes.

”Suppose she goes and recognises that you aren't Marion?”

”I don't see why she should any more than any one else,” said Pollyooly in a rea.s.suring tone.

”Oh, but, hang it! She's seen a lot of Marion. She's known her ever since she was a baby,” said the duke with a hara.s.sed air.

Pollyooly could have set his mind at rest by a.s.suring him that during her last stay at the court Lady Salkeld had not shown the slightest tendency to recognise that she was not Lady Marion Ricksborough; but she did not. She only said:

”I don't suppose that she'll take much notice of me.”

”There is that. She pretty well thinks of nothing but her own affairs,” said the duke more hopefully.

”Anyhow, it's no use worrying about it. I expect it'll be all right,”

said Pollyooly in a comforting tone.

The duke was so far rea.s.sured by her careless serenity as presently to resume his easy conversation with her. That evening, since he was dining alone, he sent for her to come to him at dessert, and talked to her again. His was a sociable nature; and in view of the presence of her and the Lump he had not invited any friends to relieve the loneliness of his stay at the court.

Lady Salkeld arrived in time for lunch next day; and at lunch Pollyooly and the Lump met her. The duke was on tenterhooks, needlessly, for she bestowed a tepid kiss on Pollyooly, tapped the cheek of the Lump even more tepidly, and addressed herself peaceably to her lunch.

But after a while she began to give her attention to the Lump, looking at him earnestly now and again, and blinking. Then she said:

”That child reminds me of somebody, Osterley. Where did you pick him up?”

”These red Deepings are all alike,” said the duke carelessly.

”Oh? He's a red Deeping, is he? Who's his father?” said Lady Salkeld almost briskly.

”It's a secret,” said the duke with perfect truthfulness, for he did not know.

Lady Salkeld looked at him, sniffed, and said with some tartness:

”Well, I never expected you to be mysterious, Osterley.”

The duke bore the reproach with patient meekness, and said nothing. It suited him very well that his sister should be giving her attention to the Lump. From the Lump nothing was to be learned.

Lady Salkeld's coming made no difference to their lives. Pollyooly went on her early morning rambles with the Lump; from breakfast to noon she did her lessons and then went for a sedate walk with Miss Belthorp.

After lunch she played with the Lump till it was time to drive out to tea with the duke. Naturally she met the same people again and again, and was now on very friendly terms with some of them. The duke, regarding her with something of the feeling of an impresario, and finding that she was everywhere welcomed as an authentic angel child, began to take pride in displaying her. Also he began to take greater pleasure in her society. Frequently, when the morning lessons were over, he would come up to the schoolroom and take her out for a walk with him. He liked to stroll about his estate and thrill with the feelings of a landed proprietor.

Pollyooly enjoyed these walks. The duke never tried to improve her mind with botany. But she learned much country lore from him, the names and habits of many birds and small animals. In spite of his exalted station, he was a simple soul; and he had retained his boyish interest in the furred and feathered world of the woods and meadows round the court. Also he enjoyed telling Pollyooly things.

Unconsciously, but quite accurately, he regarded her as his intellectual equal; and it pleased him very much to tell her things she did not know. It gave him a sense of pa.s.sing, but genuine superiority, a feeling his fellow creatures seldom inspired into him.

Sometimes he wondered why he had never thought of making a companion of Marion. He made up his mind that when, presently, he was reconciled with the d.u.c.h.ess (he had no doubt ever that presently they would be reconciled) he would make a companion of her. It never entered his mind that there would be any difficulty about doing so.