Lady Garribardine was unable to spare her secretary from the Easter party, so it had been arranged that she was to have a few days holiday from the Saturday following the dinner-party, but she must catch the three o'clock train from Paddington on the Thursday before Easter, and return then.

Katherine did not go home to Bindon's Green. She went off alone to a little place by the sea on the east coast, and there she set herself to review events, and think out her plans while she lay upon the sands unheeding the east wind.

Gerard Strobridge had served her loyally—the interest which she had meant to kindle was kindled. The Duke now had made a mental picture of her, unmarred by possible qualifications which, if he had known she was his friend's humble secretary and typist, he would have been bound to have made. Not that he was in the least a snob, but that he would have naturally considered it unbefitting his situation to go about looking for interesting companions among his friend's dependents. He would simply not have observed her at all when he came to Blissington, any more than she herself had observed either of the footmen at Gerard Strobridge's dinner. Not that she despised footmen as footmen, or the Duke secretaries as secretaries; they were worthy and necessary servants; but guests did not remark them except in their professional capacities, people who were there to serve at table or write letters and attend to business.

Not the slightest irritation or resentment mingled with these reflections of Katherine's. She was much too wise and just, and never under the influence of hurt vanity or dramatic instinct, so this point of view, that she knew the Duke would naturally take, seemed to her perfectly right, and instead of resenting it, she had used her brain to nullify it, knowing full well that if she played her part at the dinner effectually, interest would be aroused which no barrier of different statuses could entirely obliterate afterwards. Now on this last afternoon at Bayview, she must think out what she would do next, for the Duke would be arriving at Blissington by a train from the west which got in a few minutes after her own from Paddington. She had known before the dinner-party that he was coming for Easter, and that morning had received a command from her mistress that she was to look out for him, and tell him he was to take the small coupÉ and not get into the other motor, which would await her and be loaded up with fragile hat-boxes which were coming by Katherine's train. There would be the luggage car for his servant and his trunks as well. All the rest of the guests were arriving by motors or by the express an hour later.

Thus the plunge from equal to humble secretary would have to be made at once, and she must see to it that it was done with tact and skill, so as not to mar the effect already produced, but rather enhance it. There was only one drop in her cup. She did not feel altogether happy in keeping this secret from her beloved mistress. A secret, too, which concerned her, perhaps, most valued guest. But it was absolutely impossible that she could frankly avow her intentions to Lady Garribardine, as she had done to Gerard; so much she would keep to herself, but she would speak of her enjoyment at meeting the Duke, if Her Ladyship did not herself begin the subject, and she had not reason to believe Mr. Strobridge had told his aunt of the encounter. She had not seen Lady Garribardine since the dinner, having left for her holiday very early on the Saturday morning. All the way down in the train to Blissington she was conscious of suppressed excitement. She had been most careful about her appearance, and looked as charming and yet unobtrusive as it was possible to look.

She waited, when once arrived, at the entrance where the subway from the departure platform emerged—and she felt a quiver when she saw the top of the Duke's hat and then his face.

How attractive he looked! And how unlike other people! Among a crowd he was a magnificent personality, one to whom porters and officials and strangers naturally showed deference. Peers could look like very humble and sometimes even vulgar people, she knew, but no man, woman or child could mistake His Grace of Mordryn for anything but a great noble.

When he caught sight of Katherine standing just at the inside of the stream of passengers, his whole stern face changed, and an illuminating smile came over it, while he stretched out his hand cordially.

"Miss Bush! Are we to be fellow guests? You are coming to Blissington? How delightful!"

Katherine made as though she did not see the hand, and with deference and lowered lids, she said:

"Yes, I am going to Blissington, but Your Grace is under a misapprehension which I must correct. I am Her Ladyship's typist and secretary, and I am here now to give you a message, that you are to take her Ladyship's own small coupÉ and not the motor which is waiting for the bandboxes and me."

But with all her demureness, she could not prevent an irresistible and humorous quiver from dimpling round her lips, and then she raised her steady eyes and looked at him suddenly as she bowed and moved off quickly, leaving him for the first time in his life completely nonplussed! What was the meaning of this comedy? He felt rather angry. What business had Gerard Strobridge to trick him so? But had he tricked him? He recollected now that Miss Bush had not been mentioned by Gerard at all one way or another. She was simply treated as any other guest, and had come apparently with Gwendoline d'Estaire. That she was a high-bred lady his own senses had told him, whether she were a typist or no!—Highly bred and educated and exceptionally cultivated and refined. She must certainly be the daughter of some friend of Sarah's who had met with financial misfortune, poor charming girl! And he hurried after her—but only got outside the station to see her disappear in a motor already piled up inside with milliner's boxes. So, baffled and still deeply interested, he entered the coupÉ awaiting him and was whirled off. Seraphim would, of course, tell him all about it, and so he dismissed the matter from his mind; but his first thought when he got into the hall was to wonder if Katherine would be at tea. She was not. Tea was a tÊte-À-tÊte affair in his old friend's boudoir, where a hundred thousand things of interest had to be discussed between them, and no time or chance was given for reference to obscure secretaries.

After tea on her way down to receive the guests, who would continue to arrive in relays until dressing time, Lady Garribardine went into the schoolroom to see Katherine.

They spoke of business, and Katherine received orders, and took down notes, and then she said:

"Your Ladyship will be amused to hear that I met the Duke at dinner at Mr. Strobridge's. He did not know my position, and I am afraid at the time I did not undeceive him. It was such a very great pleasure to me to be taken for a lady and a guest just for once. Of course, I told him at the station my real position, and he appeared much surprised."

Lady Garribardine walked to the window and pretended to be looking out at something. She wanted to hide all the expression which might come into her eyes. The simple words, "It was such a very great pleasure to be taken for a lady and a guest just for once," had deeply touched her. She seemed to realise what such a spirit as Katherine's must feel, always in a subordinate position of no particular status—And with what dignity she carried it off!

"Child," she answered, without looking round, "no one who knows you would ever take you for anything else—the theory of blood being absolutely necessary for this, you have proved to be nonsense. The Duke is one of my oldest friends and a very fine gentleman. I am glad you had a chance of talking freely to him."

After she had left the room, Katherine folded and unfolded a bit of paper, a very unusual agitation moving her.

"Oh! I wish I could tell her outright, my dear lady!" she cried to herself. "I almost believe she would sympathise with me, but if I see that she would not, and that it would hurt and anger her, I will give up even this, my ambition."

Gerard Strobridge was not of this party; he had been obliged to go to his brother's, so Katherine would have no collaborator and would be forced to act alone.

She did not dine downstairs, but was required in the drawing-room afterwards, and until ten o'clock she stayed alone in her sitting-room, wondering what the Duke had thought, and if it would have been wiser to have stayed for a minute after firing her bomb.

Had she known it, nothing to chain his interest could have been better than her swift disappearance, for he was now thinking of her, and at the first opportunity between the soup and fish, he said to his hostess:

"Seraphim, I met your secretary, it seems, the other night at Gerard's—a very intelligent girl. I had no idea at the time that she was in any dependent position—and was greatly surprised when she addressed me at the station to-day as 'Your Grace'! She is some misfortunate friend's daughter, I suppose. Anyone I knew?"

Lady Garribardine's eyes beamed with a momentary twinkle which she suppressed—She thought of the auctioneer father and the butcher grandfather and then she said casually:

"No—she came from an advertisement, but she is a splendid creature, with more sense in her little finger than most of us have in our entire bodies—What do you think of my grey locks, Mordryn?"

The Duke assured her he found them bewitching; he saw that she did not mean to speak of her secretary.

"They cause you to look ten years younger, dear friend. I could find it in my heart to make love to you once more—and be repulsed with unabated violence, I fear!"

"Love was good when we were young, Mordryn; ten or twelve years do not matter when a man is twenty-five and a woman thirty-five to thirty-eight—that is, if they are not married. The discrepancy in age only becomes grotesque later. We loved and laughed and lived then, and should be grateful—I am—As for you, you will love again—fifty-three for a man is nothing. You are abominably attractive, you know, Mordryn, with your weary, aloof air—and your Dukedom—And now that you are altogether free from anxieties, you should take the cup of joy in both hands and quaff it—Look round the table. Have I not provided some sweet creatures for you?"

"You have indeed—Which one in particular have you destined for the cup-bearer?"

"Any one of the three on that side towards the top. You can't have brains and beauty. Lily Trevelyan has beauty, and enough tact to hide her absence of brain. Blanche Montague has no beauty but a certain chic—and I am told wonderful variety of talent. She does not satiate her admirers with sameness—While Julia Scarrisbrooke is all passion so well assumed as to be better than the real article, and always handy. These credentials I have collected from a cohort of past admirers and they can be vouched for. You have only to choose. Any one of them will be enchanted. They are only waiting to spring into your arms!"

"I believe that would bore me. I want someone who is not enchanted—someone who leaves the whole initiative to me."

Her Ladyship cast up her eyes. "My dear Mordryn, your unsophistication pains me! Who ever heard of a Duke of fifty-three, well preserved, good-looking, unmarried and distinguished—known to be generous as a lover and full of charm—being allowed to take the initiative with women—Fie!"

The Duke laughed, and by some curious turn of fancy he seemed to see the white, perfectly composed face of the stately, slender secretary, who had treated him as naught that night at Gerard's, and then looked almost mockingly respectful when she called him "Your Grace!" in the station. Would she be in the drawing-room after dinner?—Perhaps.

Yes, she was, over by the piano at the far end; but Lily Trevelyan and Blanche Montague and Julia Scarrisbrooke had surrounded him before he could get half-way down the long room, and escape was out of the question. No manoeuvring enabled him to break free of them. So he had to sit and be purred at, and see with the tail of his eye a graceful creature in black talking quietly (and intelligently he felt sure) to some less important guest—and then playing accompaniments—and then slipping away through a door at that end, presumably to bed.

He cursed civilisation, he profoundly cursed beautiful ladies, and he became sarcastic and caused Julia and Lily who were for the moment bosom friends to confide to each other, over the latter's bedroom fire, that Mordryn was "too darling for words" but spiteful as Her Ladyship's black cat.

"I do hate men to be so clever—don't you, Lil? One never knows where one is, with them."

"Oh! but Ju, dearest, he isn't deformed or deadly dull or diseased, or tipsy, he is awfully good looking and very rich and a Duke—Really you can't have everything. I thought Blanche Montague was shockingly open in her desire to secure him, did not you? I wonder why Sarah asked her here with us!"

Meanwhile Katherine Bush did not permit herself to wonder at His Grace's possible feelings or his future actions at all. She had seen the eager look in his dark blue eyes once or twice across the room and being a wise woman left things to fate.

"I wish G. were here," the hostess said to herself as she, too, stood by a bedroom fire—her own. "I have no one to exchange unspoken confidence with. He would have understood and appreciated the enchanting comedy of female purpose, male instinct to flee, and one young woman's supreme intelligence!"

The next day the Duke, who knew the house well, and in what wing Miss Arnott had worked, took it into his head to walk before breakfast in the rose garden. Miss Bush saw him from the window and allowed herself to bow gravely when he deliberately looked up; then she moved away. He felt a distinct sensation of tantalization. After breakfast everyone would play tennis. He played an extraordinarily good game himself, and was in flannels ready. Katherine thought he had a very fine figure and looked much younger in those clothes. She wanted to ask him about the emerald ring—she wanted to ask him about a number of things. She had work to do all the morning, but came out to the tennis lawn with a message to her mistress just before luncheon, during an exciting single match between the Duke and an agile young man—the last game was at 30 all—and Katherine paused to watch the strokes—40-30—And then Mordryn won—amidst shouts of applause.

Katherine had remarked that he ran about very little and won by sheer style and skill and hard hitting.

She did not loiter a second when he was free to move, but flitted back to the house before he could get near her.

She lunched alone in her schoolroom.

By the afternoon, when she did appear at tea, the Duke was thoroughly ill-tempered, he knew not why or for what reason, merely that his mood was so. Katherine, busy with the teapot, only raised her head to give a polite, respectful bow in answer to his greeting. He was infinitely too much a man of the world to single out the humble secretary and draw upon her the wrath of these lovely guests. So he contented himself by watching her, and noting her unconcerned air and easy grace. Some of the people seemed to know her well and be very friendly with her.

She showed not the slightest sign of a desire to speak to him—Could it be possible that this was the girl who only that night week had talked with him upon the enthralling subject of love!

Those utterances of hers which had sounded so cryptic at the time were intelligible now. How subtle had been her comprehension of the situation. He remembered her face when he had asked her if she knew Blissington! And again when she had told him that that night week he would know how altogether unprofitable any investigations regarding her would be! And now in the character of humble secretary she was just as complete as she had been when apparently a fellow guest and social equal. It was all annoyingly disturbing. It placed him in a false position and her in one in which she held all the advantages! And there she sat serene and dignified, hedged round with that barrier of ice of which she had spoken. He had not experienced such perplexing emotions for many years.

He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to ask her what it all meant—He would like to know her history, and whence she had come. Gwendoline d'Estaire had treated her, he had noticed, not as a dependent, but as a friend. He felt himself rather awkward—he, a man of the world accustomed to homage from women!

He did manage to say that it was a bore that the rain had come on, and it looked as though to-morrow would be wet. And he felt humiliated at the fine, instantly suppressed smile which flickered round her mouth at this brilliant remark from an acknowledged wit!

Then he became angry with himself—what matter to him whether she smiled or did not smile? It was obvious that he could not be on terms of familiar friendship with Seraphim's secretary, at his age and with his position. So he had strength of mind to move away from the table, and to allow himself to be purred over by one of the trio of charmers who had been asked for his benefit—but rage mounted in his breast. He was not enjoying himself at all, and if he did not see more of his old friend herself, he really would not stay over Monday as he had intended, but would go back to town on Sunday night!

Lady Garribardine knew the signs of the times and took him off to her sitting-room after tea when most of the others began to play bridge.

"I think modern women have less charm than they had, Seraphim," the Duke said from the depths of an armchair, rather acidly. "They are almost as illiterate as ladies of the ballet used to be when I was young; they are quite as slangy and noisy, and they are full of affectations. If one does not know the last word of their fashionable jargon and cannot keep up a constant flow of 'back talk'—which, incidentally, it would require the wit of the St. James Street cabmen of twenty years ago to be able to do—one is asphyxiated by them. I shall have to become acclimated, I feel. I have been too long away and have lost touch with the movement—I sigh for repose and peace."

"Nonsense, Mordryn—it will do you a great deal of good to be shaken up, you must move with the times."

"But I entirely decline to do so. To what end?"

"You must certainly marry again now that you are at last free."

"Undoubtedly it is my obvious duty, as otherwise the title will die out—but surely you do not suggest that I should convert any of these charming creatures who were good enough to try to lighten my mood last night and to-day, into my wife! I had hoped they were at least safely married, and now you make me tremble in case you are going to announce to me that some are widows!"

"Blanche Montague is; I merely asked the others to accustom you to the modern type. They are to break in your sensibilities, so to speak, and next time you come, if you don't fancy Blanche I will have a selection of suitable prospective Duchesses."

"Will they make as much noise as these 'ballons d'essai'?"

"More—nothing modern can be dignified or quiet, so get the idea out of your head. They are all so out of door and so hearty, such delightful, fresh, knowing, supremely uninnocent, jolly good fellows, they can't be silent or keep still. There are too many new rÉvues to be talked about, and too much golf to be played, and new American nigger dances to be learned.—Come, come, Mordryn! You do not want to be ridiculously old-fashioned—and really Blanche Montague is most suitable. Montague left her well provided for—and she was only thirty-two last birthday."

"But I don't like her voice, and what should we converse about in the entr'actes?"

"Blanche is famous for her small talk, she will start upon any subject under the sun you please—and change it before you can answer the first question. No fear of stagnation there!"

"Even the description tires me. I prefer the lady who you assured me was all simulated passion. I adore passion, though I confess I prefer it to be real."

"How captious of you! The thing is unknown in these days, it has to be reconstructed, like the modern rubies—lots of little ground-up fragments pressed into a whole by scientific chemistry.—A good imitation is all you will get, Mordryn."

"I loathe imitations," and His Grace shuddered.

"I think you had better give me an exact description of what you do want, for, my poor old friend, you seem to be out to court disappointment. I earnestly desire to help you into a second noose more satisfactory than the one I originally placed around your neck—so out with it! A full description!"

The Duke deliberately lit a cigarette, and a gleam of firelight caught his emerald ring.

"Your famous talisman is flashing, Mordryn, the lyre shows that it approves of your thoughts!"

"The woman I should like to marry must be, and look—supremely well-bred—but healthy and normal, not overbred like poor Laura, and Gerard's wife, Beatrice.—She must be able to talk upon the subjects which interest one—a person of cultivation in short. She must have a sense of humour and fine ideals and a strong feeling about the responsibilities of the position, and be above all things dignified and quiet and composed.—And I should like—" and here a faint deprecatory smile flickered about his mouth for a moment, "I should like her to love me, and take a little interest in the human, tangible side of the affair—if you do not think I am asking too much of fate at my age?"

"It is a large order—I only know of one woman who answers to your requirements and she of course is entirely out of the question."

"Who is she—and why is she out of the question?"

"Useless to answer either query, since, as I say, she is altogether out of the running. It was only an idea of mine, but I will diligently seek for your paragon—for, Mordryn, I shall never feel my conscience clear until I see you happily told off—and the father of at least six sturdy boys."

The Duke raised his hands in deprecation.

"Heavens, Seraphim! You would overwhelm me with a litter, then! My wants in that direction are modest. The 'quiver full' has never appealed to me. I want my wife to be my loved companion—my darling if you will—but not, not a rabbit."

When he was dressing for dinner he thought over his friend's words—He had not insisted upon knowing who the "one woman" could be—He himself had lately seen a creature who seemingly, as far as he could judge from one evening's acquaintance, possessed quite a number of the necessary qualifications—but as in the case of Seraphim's specimen, his was also completely out of the running, and not to be thought of in any capacity—Alas!

It was strange, with this resolution so firmly fixed in his mind, that after dinner he should have broken loose from the bevy of ladies waiting to entrap him, and have deliberately gone to the piano to talk to that dull little Lady Flamborough who was leaning upon the lid, chatting with Miss Bush!

Katherine kept her eyes fixed upon the keyboard with that meek, deferential demureness suitable to her station when amidst such exalted company; but her red mouth had an indefinable expression about it which was exasperating.

Mordryn seized the first second in which Lady Flamborough's attention was diverted by a remark from someone else, to bend down a little and say softly,

"Are you not even going to say good evening to me, Miss Bush?—It is 'this night week.'"

She looked up with perfect composure.

"Good evening, Your Grace."

He frowned. "Is that all?"

"As Your Grace very truly remarked, it is 'this night week.'"

"And you think that has answered all the riddles?"

"Of course."

He frowned again, he knew Julia Scarrisbrooke was swooping down upon him, there was not a moment's time to be lost.

"I do not—to-morrow I will make an opportunity in which you will have to answer them all categorically—do you hear?"

Katherine thrilled. She liked his haughty bearing, the tone of command in his perfect voice.

She remembered once when she and Matilda had been eating lunch at a Lyons popular cafÉ, Matilda had said:

"My! Kitten, there's such a strange-looking young man sitting behind you—Whatever makes him look quite different to everyone else?"

And she had turned and perceived that a pure Greek Hermes in rather shabby modern American clothes was manipulating a toothpick within a few feet of her—and her eye, trained from museum study, had instantly seen that it was the balance of proportion, the set and size of the head, and the angle of placing of eyes which differentiated him so startlingly from the mass of humanity surrounding them. She had said to Matilda:

"You had better look at him well, Tild—You will never see such another in the whole of your life. He is a freak, a perfect survival of the ancient Greek type. He is exactly right and not strange-looking really. It is all the other people who are wrong and clumsy or grotesque."

She thought of this now. The Duke stood out from everyone else in the same way, although he was not of pure Greek type, but much more Roman, but there was that astonishing proportion of bone and length of limb about him, the acknowledged yet indescribable shape of a thoroughbred, which middle age had not diminished, but rather accentuated.

She again noticed his hands, and his great emerald ring—but she did not reply at all to his announcement of his intentions for the morrow. She bent down and picked up a piece of music which had fallen to the floor, and Julia Scarrisbrooke swooped and caught her prey and carried it off into safety on a big sofa.

But as Katherine gazed from her window on that Good Friday night up into the deep blue star-studded sky, a feeling of awe came over her—at the magnitude of the vista fate was opening in front of her eyes.