But afterward the great Duke of Ormskirk continued for a long while
motionless and faintly smiling as he gazed into the fire. Tricked and
ignominiously defeated! Ay, but that was a trifle now, scarcely worthy of
consideration. The girl had hoodwinked him, had lied more skilfully than
he, yet in the fact that she had lied he found a prodigal atonement. Whigs
and Jacobites might have their uses in the cosmic scheme, he reflected, as
house-flies have, but what really mattered was that at Halvergate yonder
Marian awaited his coming. And in place of statecraft he fell to thinking
of two hazel eyes and of abundant hair the color of a dead oak-leaf.