Part 7 (1/2)

The Duke burst into a hearty laugh, and diving in his coat-tail pocket, produced the offending kitten in his great fist. Lady Caroline Sellwood took a step backward; and because she did not lead it, there was no laugh this time from her guests; and because there was no laugh but his own, the Duke looked consciously awkward for the first time. In fact, it was the worst moment yet; the next, however, Olivia's pink palms were stretched out for the kitten, and Olivia's laughing voice was making the sweetest music that ever had gladdened the heart of the Duke.

”The little darling!” cried the girl with genuine delight. ”Let me have it, do!”

He gave it to her without a word, but with eyes that clung as fast to her face as the tiny claws did to her dress. Olivia's attention was all for the kitten; she was serenely unconscious of that devouring gaze; but Claude saw it, and winced. And Lady Caroline saw it too.

”Poor mite!” pursued Olivia, stroking the bunch of black fur with a cheek as soft. ”What a shame to keep it smothered up in a stuffy pocket!

Are you fond of cats?” she asked the Duke.

”Am I not! They were my only mates up the bush. I brought over three besides the kitten.”

”You brought them from the bush?”

”I did so!”

Olivia looked at him; his eyes had never left her; she dropped hers, and caressed the kitten.

”I put that one in my pocket,” continued the Duke, ”because I learned Livingstone to ride in front of me when he was just such another little 'un. But he'd done a bolt in the night; I found him just now with his three working paws black with your London soot; but he wasn't there when I got up, so I took the youngster. P'r'aps it wasn't over kind. It won't happen again. He's yours!”

”The kitten?”

”Why, certainly.”

”To keep?”

”If you will. I'd be proud!”

”Then _I_ am proud. And I'll try to be as kind to it as you would have been.”

”You're uncommon kind to me,” remarked the Duke irrelevantly. ”So are you all,” he added, in a ringing voice, as he drew himself up to his last inch, and for once stood clear of the medium height. ”I never knew that there were so many of you here, or I'd have kept away. I'm just as I stepped off of the s.h.i.+p. I went aboard pretty much as I left the bush; if you'll make allowances for me this time, it sha'n't happen again. You don't catch me twice in a rig like this! Meanwhile, it's very kind of you all not to laugh at a fellow. I'm much obliged to you. I am so. And I hope we shall know each other better before long!”

Claude was not ashamed of him then. There was no truer dignity beneath the ruffles and periwigs of their ancestors in the Maske picture-gallery than that of the rude, blunt fellow who could face modestly and yet kindly a whole roomful of well-dressed Londoners. It did not desert him as he shook hands with Lady Caroline and Olivia. In another moment the Duke was gone, and of his own accord, before he had been twenty minutes in the house. And what remained of that Wednesday afternoon fell flat and stale--always excepting the little formula with which Lady Caroline Sellwood sped her parting guests.

”Poor fellow,” it ran, ”he has roughed it so dreadfully in that horrible bus.h.!.+ You won't know him the next time you see him. Yes, I a.s.sure you, he went straight on board at that end and came straight to us at this!

Not a day for anything in Melbourne or here. Actually not one day! I thought it so dear of him to come as he was. Didn't you?”

CHAPTER V

WITH THE ELECT

The ragged beard had been trimmed to a point; the uncouth hair had been cut, shampooed, and invested with a subtle, inoffensive aroma; and a twenty-five-s.h.i.+lling Lincoln and Bennett crowned all without palpable incongruity. The brown, chapped neck, on the other hand, did look browner and rougher than before in the cold clutch of a gleaming stand-up collar. And a like contrast was observable between the ample cuffs of a brand-new s.h.i.+rt, and the Duke's hands, on whose hirsute backs the yellow freckles now stood out like half-sovereigns. Jack drew the line at gloves. On the whole, however, his docility had pa.s.sed all praise; he even consented to burden himself with a most superfluous Inverness cape, all for the better concealment of the ready-made suit.

In fine, a few hours had made quite a painfully new man of him; yet perhaps the only real loss was that of his good spirits; and these he had left, not in any of the shops to which Claude had taken him before dinner, but, since then, in his own house in Belgrave Square.

Claude had shown him over it between nine and ten; they were now arm-in-arm on their way from this errand, and the street-lamps shone indifferently on the Duke's dejection and on Claude's relief. He had threatened instant occupation of his own town-house; he had conceived nightmare hospitalities towards all and sundry; and had stuck to his guns against argument with an obstinacy which made Claude's hair stand on end. Now the Duke had less to say. He had seen his house. The empty, echoing, inhospitable rooms, with perhaps a handful of electric lights freezing out of the darkness as they entered, had struck a chill to his genial heart. And Claude knew it as he led the way to his own cosy chambers; but was reminded of another thing as he approached them, and became himself, on the spot, a different man.

He had forgotten the two friends he had invited to come in for a private view of the large-paper edition. He was reminded of them by seeing from the street his open window filled with light; and his manner had entirely altered when he detained the Duke below, and sought with elaborate phrases to impress him beforehand with the transcendent merits of the couple whom he was about to meet. Jack promptly offered to go away. He had never heard tell of Impressionism, and artists were not in his line. What about the other joker? What did _he_ do?

”Nothing, my dear fellow; he's far too good a man to _do_ things,”