To his hearer Palliser's story became an amusing thing, read in the light of this most delicious frankness.It was Palliser himself who played the fool, and not T.Tembarom, who had simply known what he wanted, and had, with businesslike directness, applied himself to finding a method of obtaining it.The young women he gave his time to must be "Ladies" because Miss Hutchinson had required it from him.The female flower of the noble houses had been passed in review before him to practise upon, so to speak.The handsomer they were, the more dangerously charming, the better Miss Hutchinson would be pleased.And he had been regarded as a presumptuous aspirant.It was a situation for a comedy.But the "Ladies" would not enjoy it if they were told.
It was also not the Duke of Stone who would tell them.They could not in the least understand the subtlety of the comedy in which they had unconsciously taken part.Ann Hutchinson's grandmother curtsied to them in her stiff old way when they passed.Ann Hutchinson had gone to the village school and been presented with prizes for needlework and good behavior.But what a girl she must be, the slim bit of a thing with a red head! What a clear-headed and firm little person!
In courts he had learned to wear a composed countenance when he was prompted to smile, and he wore one now.He enjoyed the society of T.
Tembarom increasingly every hour.He provided him with every joy.
Their drive was a long one, and they talked a good deal.They talked of the Hutchinsons, of the invention, of the business "deals" Tembarom had entered into at the outset, and of their tremendously encouraging result.It was not mere rumor that Hutchinson would end by being a rich man.The girl would be an heiress.How complex her position would be! And being of the elect who unknowingly bear with them the power that "moves the world," how would she affect Temple Barholm and its surrounding neighborhood?
"I wish to God she was here now! " exclaimed Tembarom, suddenly.
It had been an interesting talk, but now and then the duke had wondered if, as it went on, his companion was as wholly at his ease as was usual with him.An occasional shade of absorption in his expression, as if he were thinking of two things at once despite himself, a hint of restlessness, revealed themselves occasionally.Was there something more he was speculating on the possibility of saying, something more to tell or explain? If there was, let him take his time.His audience, at all events, was possessed of perceptions.This somewhat abrupt exclamation might open the way.
"That is easily understood, my dear fellow," replied the duke.
"There's times when you want a little thing like that just to talk things over with, just to ask, because you--you're dead sure she'd never lose her head and give herself away without knowing she was doing it.She could just keep still and let the waves roll over her and be standing there ready and quiet when the tide had passed.It's the keeping your mouth shut that's so hard for most people, the not saying a darned thing, whatever happens, till just the right time.""Women cannot often do it," said the duke."Very few men can.""You're right," Tembarom answered, and there was a trifle of anxiety in his tone.
"There's women, just the best kind, that you daren't tell a big thing to.Not that they'd mean to give it away--perhaps they wouldn't know when they did it--but they'd feel so anxious they'd get--they'd get--""Rattled," put in the duke, and knew who he was thinking of.He saw Miss Alicia's delicate, timid face as he spoke.
T.Tembarom laughed.
"That's just it," he answered."They wouldn't go back on you for worlds, but--well, you have to be careful with them.""He's got something on his mind," mentally commented the duke."He wonders if he will tell it to me.""And there's times when you'd give half you've got to be able to talk a thing out and put it up to some one else for a while.I could do it with her.That's why I said I wish to God that she was here.""You have learned to know how to keep still," the duke said."So have I.We learned it in different schools, but we have both learned."As he was saying the words, he thought he was going to hear something;when he had finished saying them he knew that he would without a doubt.T.Tembarom made a quick move in his seat; he lost a shade of color and cleared his throat as he bent forward, casting a glance at the backs of the coachman and footman on the high seat above them.
"Can those fellows hear me?" he asked.
"No," the duke answered; "if you speak as you are speaking now.""You are the biggest man about here," the young man went on."You stand for everything that English people care for, and you were born knowing all the things I don't.I've been carrying a big load for quite a while, and I guess I'm not big enough to handle it alone, perhaps.Anyhow, I want to be sure I'm not making fool mistakes.The worst of it is that I've got to keep still if I'm right, and I've got to keep still if I'm wrong.I've got to keep still, anyhow.""I learned to hold my tongue in places where, if I had not held it, Imight have plunged nations into bloodshed," the duke said."Tell me all you choose."As a result of which, by the time their drive had ended and they returned to Stone Hover, he had told him, and, the duke sat in his corner of the carriage with an unusual light in his eyes and a flush of somewhat excited color on his cheek.
"You're a queer fellow, T.Tembarom," he said when they parted in the drawing-room after taking tea."You exhilarate me.You make me laugh.
If I were an emotional person, you would at moments make me cry.
There's an affecting uprightness about you.You're rather a fine fellow too, 'pon my life." Putting a waxen, gout-knuckled old hand on his shoulder, and giving him a friendly push which was half a pat, he added, "You are, by God!"And after his guest had left him, the duke stood for some minutes gazing into the fire with a complicated smile and the air of a man who finds himself quaintly enriched.
"I have had ambitions in the course of my existence-- several of them," he said, "but even in over-vaulting moments never have Iaspired to such an altitude as this--to be, as it were, part of a melodrama.One feels that one scarcely deserves it."