A WORD OF WARNING.
To Leslie the days seemed to go by like a dream during Yorke's absence.
She thought of him every hour, but she had yet scarcely realized all
that had happened to her.
If Francis Lisle had not been utterly unlike the ordinary run of
parents, he would not have failed to see the change that had come over
her; but he was too absorbed in his painting to notice the difference;
and, indeed, if Leslie had appeared at breakfast in a domino and mask,
or sat during the meal with an umbrella up, he would very likely have
failed to see anything extraordinary in the occurrence; and it rather
suited him than otherwise that Leslie should sit beside him perfectly
silent, with her hands folded in her lap, eyes fixed on vacancy, with a
dreamy smile on her lips.
But if Francis Lisle was blind, the duke was not.
His keen eyes noted the change in the expression of the lovely face,
the soft light of a newly born joy in the gray eyes, and he guessed the
cause.
"Like the rest!" he thought, with the bitter cynicism produced by his
pain. "Like the rest! Well, it will afford me a little amusement; it
will be a _petite comedie_ played for my special benefit."
And yet at times, when he was free from pain, and he looked up at
Leslie as she stood beside his chair, he felt doubtful and uncertain as
to the accuracy of his judgment of her.
"She has the eyes of an angel," he muttered, when they were together
one morning, the second after Yorke's departure for London. "One would
say that they were the clear windows of a soul as pure as a child's."
His muttering was almost audible, and Leslie, awakened by it from a
dream, bent down to him, and asked:
"What did you say, Mr. Temple?"
"I was saying--and thinking--that you are very good-natured to keep a
crusty, irritable invalid company on such a delightful morning."
"Did you say all that?" she said, with a soft laugh.
"Well, if I didn't say it, I thought it," he responded. "You must find
it dull work, but you are used to sacrificing yourself for others, are
you not?" and he glanced at the painter who was at work at a little
distance on the beach.
"It is not much of a sacrifice to stay with those one likes," she said,
half absently.
The duke looked up at her sharply, and yet with a touch of color on his
face.
"Thank you. I am to take it that you rather like me than otherwise,
Miss Leslie?"
She blushed, and eyed him with sweet gravity.
"I should be very ungrateful if I did not," she said. And mentally she
added, "And how could I help liking you; you are his friend?"
"I see," he said. "Well, it is very kind of you to keep me company. I
should have missed my cousin--the duke--very much, if you had not been
here. I am afraid mine is dull society after his, and that you miss the
pleasant drives and sails."
"They were very pleasant, yes," she admitted, a little confusedly.
How hard it was that she should be obliged to deceive this kind-hearted
friend of Yorke's, and how she longed for the time when he and
her father should know her and Yorke's blissful secrets, when all
concealment should be at an end, and her great happiness proclaimed.
And yet it was sweet, this secret of theirs; it seemed to make their
love more precious and sacred.
"Yes," said the duke. "Yorke is capital company. He is a great favorite
wherever he goes."
"Yes," she murmured.
"He's so light-hearted," went on the duke. "And light-hearted people
are extremely rare nowadays; but after all it isn't very much to his
credit; I mean that it is easy to be joyous when you are young, in
perfect health, and are----," he paused a second, "a duke."
"Are dukes so much happier than other people?" she said, with a faint
smile.
He winced. She had unconsciously struck home.
"No," he said, laconically. "Most of those I know are very much less
happy than the rest of mankind, but it is different with the Duke of
Rothbury. He is, as I say, young and in splendid health----," his lips
moved and he sighed cynically, "but if he weren't he would still be
very popular and always welcome everywhere."
"Why?" said Leslie, looking at him with her guileless eyes.
He met their glance for a moment, then lowered his keen, suspicious
ones.
"Is it acting?" he asked himself, and he gnawed at his lip.
"Why? Because he is a duke. If he were old and ugly, and--and twisted
as I am, he would still be run after by all sorts and conditions of
men--and women," he added, but in a lower voice, as if he were half
ashamed of his cynicism.
Leslie understood, and her face flushed for a moment; but it was not
with guilt, but the indignation of a pure-hearted girl.
"You mean that they--women--would pretend to like him because of his
rank?" she said, quietly, but with gentle gravity.
"That's what I meant," he assented, eyeing her attentively. "There
isn't a woman in the world whose heart doesn't leap at the thought of
becoming a duchess."
"It is not true!" she said, her eyes flashing down at him with purest
indignation. "It is--but you are only speaking in jest, Mr. Temple,"
and she smiled at the warmth she had been hurried into.
He looked hard at her.
"I am not jesting," he said; "but stating the solemn, shameful fact."
She gazed down at him almost pityingly.
"Ah, you do not know women at all," she said. "No," with a shake of her
head, as he opened his lips. "You may know a great many, and they may
be very great ladies, and a few of them may be as worldly as you say
they are, but not many. I will not believe that."
He fingered his chin with restless fingers, and looked from right to
left.
"If she is not acting then--then she is on the brink of a great
misery," he thought. "If I could only believe her!"
"You mean that it would make no difference to you whether a man were a
duke or not?" he said.
Her face went rather pale.
"Yes, it would make a difference," she said in a low voice. "I would
rather not make the acquaintance of a duke, or any one so far above me
in rank; and there are thousands of women who feel the same."
"Oh," he says, curtly. "I never was fortunate enough to meet any.
Seeing that that is your feeling, it was very kind of you to honor
me--I mean my cousin," he corrected himself sharply, "with your
friendship, Miss Leslie," and he smiled.
Leslie's cheek burned, and she turned her face from his keen eyes.
"An actress," he muttered. "And yet I'll give her a word of warning,
though she doesn't deserve it."
"Did the duke happen to say when he was coming back, Miss Leslie?"
"No," she said. "He said that he might be two or three days."
He laughed.
"I shouldn't be surprised if Portmaris never saw him again."
He saw Leslie start slightly, then a faint smile flashed over her face,
a smile of perfect faith. Yorke not come back! She remembered his
last word to her. I shall count every moment while I'm away from you,
dearest, every moment till I am back with you.
"My cousin is rather erratic," said the duke, casually and
indifferently. "He is a very nice fellow, good-hearted and the rest
of it; but--well, a little fickle; at least, that's the character the
ladies give him."
"Fickle," she said, smiling still.
"Y-es," he said, languidly. "What's that song in 'The Grand Duchess,'
'A butterfly flits from flower to flower?' One mustn't blame the
butterfly, you know. 'It's its nature to,' as Dr. Watts says; and, like
the butterfly, Yorke is what is called very susceptible. He is always
falling in love----."
She moved slightly, and the smile died away from her lips; but the
clear eyes met his steadily, unflinchingly.
"And, fortunately, falling out of it again. He's like the man in the
play who was in the habit of proposing to some woman every day; and
if she accepted him he rode off, and she saw him no more, and if she
refused him he asked her to be a sister, an aunt, or something of that
kind, and rode off just as easily."
She opened her lips slowly.
"I thought you were a friend of the Duke of Rothbury's, Mr. Temple?"
she said, in a very low voice.
The duke flushed.
"Eh? Oh, I see. You think it very base of me to speak ill of him behind
his back?"
"That's what I meant," she assented, gravely.
"Oh, but the world wouldn't consider that I had spoken at all ill of
him."
"The world!" she said. "How wicked and heartless it must be, this world
of yours, Mr. Temple!"
"It is," he said, curtly. "As heartless as a flint."
"Or as the Duke of Rothbury, if he were what you have painted him," she
said very softly.
"You don't believe me, then?" he asked, looking up at her from under
his thick brows.
She shook her head.
"Not the very least!" she said, actually smiling.
"You forget that I have known him all his life, and that you have only
known him five minutes!"
She still smiled.
"But in five minutes one may know----." She stopped, and her face
flushed, and the tears arose to her eyes. "No, I don't believe it," she
said, her voice tremulous. "There may be some men who are as false and
heartless as you say, but not the Duke of Rothbury."
He looked at her gravely, almost pityingly.
"Don't be too sure of that, Miss Leslie!" he said, with a touch of
warning in his tone. "He is a good fellow, a charming companion,
but----." He was stopped by the expression of pain which shone in her
eyes.
"Oh, please let us talk of something else!" she said, quickly. "See,
here is the postman."
"I hope he has brought my medicine," said the duke. But the postman,
tugging at his cap, handed a small parcel to Leslie.
"For me!" she said, with surprise. "Why, what can it be? Are you sure
it is for me and not papa? It is like one of the boxes they send the
colors in."
"A sample of a new scent or pearl powder," said the duke, leaning back
languidly.
"Why should they send it to me?" she said, laughingly.
She tore off the outer paper as she spoke, and with the pleasant
excitement which is always produced by the receipt of a parcel whose
contents are unknown, she opened the little wooden box.
The duke heard an exclamation, a cry of amazement, of admiration, of
delight, and looked up sharply.
"Is it scent or pearl powder?" he asked, with an amused smile.
She looked at him as if she scarcely heard him. Her eyes were shining,
her lips apart.
"It is neither," she said, and without another word, with the little
box fast clasped in her hand, ran toward the house.