The Tangled Skein Part 28

"Marry! . . ." rejoined the Duke with a laugh. Then he paused, as if in the act of recalling his somewhat roving thoughts, and said more coldly--

"You must pardon me, my lord, if I do not quite perceive in what manner this may concern you."

"I pray Your Grace to have patience with me yet a while longer. I will explain my purpose directly. For the moment I will entreat you, an you will, to answer my question. It is a matter of serious moment to me, and you would render me eternally your debtor."

None knew better in these days than did the high-born Spaniards, all the many little tricks of voice and gesture which go to make up the abstruse and difficult art of diplomacy. Don Miguel at this juncture looked so frank, so boyish, and withal so earnest, that the Duke of Wess.e.x--himself the soul of truth and candour--never even suspected that the young man was but playing a part and enacting a scene, which he had rehea.r.s.ed under the skilful management of His Eminence the Spanish Cardinal.

Wess.e.x, ever ready to see the merry side of life, ever ready for gaiety and brightness, felt completely disarmed, glad enough to lay aside the cold reserve which the foreign envoys themselves had called forth in him. He liked the Marquis under this new semblance of boyish guilelessness, and returned his tone of deferential frankness with one of easy familiarity.

"The question, my lord, is somewhat difficult to answer," he said with mock seriousness, the while a gay laugh was dancing in his eyes. "You see, there are certain difficulties in the way. The Lady Ursula is a Glynde . . . and all the Glyndes have brown eyes. . . . Now at this moment I feel as if I could never love a brown eye again."

"The Lady Ursula is very beautiful," rejoined the Spaniard.

"Possibly--but you surprise me."

"Your Grace has never seen her?"

"Never, since she was out of her cradle."

"I have the advantage of Your Grace, then."

"You know her, my lord? . . ."

"Intimately!" said Don Miguel, with what seemed an irresistible impulse.

Then he checked his enthusiasm with a visible effort, and stammered with a return of his previous nervousness--

"That is . . . I . . ."

"Yes?" queried the Duke.

"That is the purport of my importunity, my lord," said the young man, springing to his feet and speaking once more in tones of n.o.ble candour.

"I would have asked Your Grace that, since you do not know the Lady Ursula, since you have no wish to claim her hand, if some one else . . ."

"If the Lady Ursula honoured some one else than my unworthy self. . . .

Is that your meaning, my lord?" queried Wess.e.x, as Don Miguel had made a slight pause in his impetuous speech.

"If I . . ."

"You, my lord?"

"I would wish to know if I should be offending Your Grace?"

"Offending me?" cried Wess.e.x joyfully. "Nay, my lord, why were you so long in telling me this gladsome news? . . . Offending me? . . . you have succeeded in taking a load from my conscience, my dear Marquis. So you love the Lady Ursula Glynde? . . . Ye heavens! what a number of circ.u.mlocutions to arrive at this simple little fact! You love her . . .

she is very beautiful . . . and she loves you. Where did you first see her, my lord?"

"At East Molesey Fair. . . . Your Grace intervened . . . you must remember!"

"Most inopportunely, meseems. I must indeed crave your pardon. And since then?"

"The acquaintanceship, perhaps somewhat unpleasantly begun, has ripened into . . . friendship."

"And thence into love! Nay, you have my heartiest congratulations, my lord. The Glyndes are famous for their virtue, and since the Lady Ursula is beautiful, why! your Court will indeed be graced by such a pattern of English womanhood."

"Oh!" said the Spaniard, with a quick gesture of deprecation.

"Nay! you must have no fear, my lord. Since you have honoured me by consulting my feelings in the matter, it shall be my pride and my delight to further your cause, and that of the Lady Ursula . . . if indeed she will deign to express her wishes to me. . . . I hereby give you a gentleman's word of honour that I consider the promise, which she made to her father in her childhood, in no way binding upon her now.

. . . As for the future, I swear that I will obtain Her Majesty's consent to your immediate marriage."

"Nay! I pray you, not so fast!" laughed Don Miguel lightly. "Neither the Lady Ursula nor I have need of Her Majesty's consent. . . ."

"But methought----"

"'Twas not I who spoke of marriage, remember!"

"Then you have completely bewildered me, my lord," rejoined Wess.e.x with a sudden frown. "I understood----"

"That I am the proudest of men, certainly," quoth Don Miguel with a sarcastic curl of his sensual lip, "but 'twas Your Grace who spoke of the lady's virtue. I merely wished to know if I should be offending Your Grace if . . ."

He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. The laugh grated unpleasantly on Wess.e.x' ear, and the gesture savoured of impertinence. The Marquis'

manner had suddenly undergone a change, which caused the Duke's every nerve to tingle.

"If what?" he queried curtly. "The devil! sir, cannot you say what you do mean?"

"Why should I," replied the Spaniard, "since your Grace has already guessed? You will own that I have acted _en galant homme_, by thinking of your wishes. You will not surely desire to champion that much-vaunted virtue of the Glyndes."

"Then what you mean, sir, is that . . ."

"I cannot speak more plainly, my lord, for that among gentlemen is quite impossible. But rumours fly about quickly at Court, and I feared that Your Grace might have caught one, ere I had the chance of a.s.suring you that I recognize the priority of your claim. But now you tell me that you have no further interest in the lady, so I am rea.s.sured. . . . We foreigners, you know, take pa.s.sing pleasures more lightly than you serious-minded English . . . and if the lady be unattached . . . and more than willing . . . why should we play the part of Joseph? . . . a ridiculous role at best, eh, my lord? . . . and one, I think, which Your Grace would ever disdain to play. . . . As for me, I am quite rea.s.sured . . . Au revoir to Your Grace. . . ."

And before Wess.e.x had time to utter another word, Don Miguel, still laughing, went out of the room.

The Duke felt a little bewildered. The conversation had gone through such a sudden transition, that at the time, he had hardly realized whether it touched him deeply or not.

Owing to Ursula's girlish little ruse, he was totally unaware of her ident.i.ty with the lady who had been the subject of this very distasteful discussion. To him Lady Ursula Glynde was both unknown and uninteresting. His meeting with beautiful, exquisite "f.a.n.n.y" had driven all thoughts of other women from his mind.

But with all his volatile disposition, where women were concerned, the Duke of Wess.e.x was nevertheless imbued with a strong and romantic feeling of chivalry towards the entire s.e.x, and Don Miguel's disdainful allusions to the lady who might have been d.u.c.h.ess of Wess.e.x had left his finger-tips itching with the desire to throw his glove in the impudent rascal's face.

Harry Plantagenet, who throughout the interview had openly expressed his disapproval of his master's interlocutor, gave an impatient little whine. He longed for the privacy of his own apartments, the warmth of the rugs laid out specially for him.

"Harry, old friend!" said Wess.e.x thoughtfully, "what the devil, think you, that young reprobate meant?"

He took the dog's beautiful head between his hands and looked straight into the honest, faithful eyes of his dear and constant companion.

"Marry!" he continued more lightly, "you may well look doubtful, you wise philosopher, for you know the Glyndes as well as I do. You remember old Lady Annabel, whose very look would stop your tail from wagging, and Charles, stodgy, silent, serious Charles, who never drank, never laughed, had probably never seen a woman's ankle in his life. And then the Lady Ursula . . . a Glynde . . . do you mind me, old Harry? . . .

therefore as ugly, as a combination of virtue and Scotch descent can make any woman. . . . Yet, if I caught the rascal's meaning, neither Scotch descent nor ill looks have proved a shield for the lady's virtue!

. . . Well, 'tis no business of ours, is it, old Harry? Let us live and let live. . . . Perhaps Lady Ursula is not ugly . . . perchance that unpleasant-looking Spaniard doth truly love her . . . and who are we, Harry, you and I, that we should prove censorious? Let us to our apartments, friend, and meditate on woman's frailty and on our own . . .

especially on our own . . . we are mere male creatures, and women are so adorable! even when they bristle with virtues like a hedgehog . . . but like him too, are cushioned beneath those bristles with a hundred charming, fascinating sins. . . . Come along, friend, and let us meditate why sin . . . sin of a certain type, remember, should be so enchantingly tempting."