The Career of Katherine Bush Part 47

"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 cafe, 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 ma.s.s 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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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.

CHAPTER XXVI

The Duke found great difficulty in carrying out his intention on that Sat.u.r.day. For a Duke to escape from a lady-pack brought there especially to hunt him is no easy task! He had reason to believe that his hostess would not aid him either, and that it would be impossible to appeal to her sympathy, because he was quite aware that he would withhold his own, had he to look at the matter dispa.s.sionately as concerning someone else.

It was a fool's errand he was bent upon in all senses of the phrase. But as this conviction forced itself upon him, the desire to see and talk with Katherine grew stronger.

It happened that she lunched downstairs. At such a large party as this, that meal was consumed at several small tables of six each, and of course the secretary was not placed at His Grace's! Indeed, she sat at one directly at his back, so that he could not see her, though once in a pause he heard her deep, fascinating voice. When later in the hall coffee and cigarettes had come, Katherine pa.s.sed near him to put down a cup, and he seized the moment to address her.

"In twenty minutes, I am coming from the smoking-room to the schoolroom--please be there."

Miss Bush gave no sign as to whether or no she heard this remark, which was made in a low voice with a note of pleading in it. If he chose to do this, she would make it quite clear that she would have no clandestine acquaintance with him, but at the same time she experienced a delicious sense of excitement.

She was seated before her typewriter busily typing innumerable letters, when she heard his footsteps outside, and then a gentle tap at the door.

"Come in!" she called, and he appeared.

His face looked stern, and not particularly good-tempered.

"May I stay for a moment in this haven of rest, Miss Bush?" and he shut the door. "In so large a party, every sitting-room seems to be overflowing, and there is not a corner where one may talk in peace."

Katherine had risen with her almost overrespectful air, which never concealed the mischievous twinkle in her eyes when she raised them, but now they were fixed upon the sheets of paper.

"Your Grace is welcome to that armchair for a little, but I am very occupied. Lady Garribardine wishes these letters to go by this evening's post."

"I wish you would not call me 'Your Grace'," he said, a little impatiently. "I cannot realise that you can be the same person whom I met at Gerard Strobridge's."

"I am not," she looked up at him.

"Why?"

"It is obvious--I was me--myself, that night--a guest."

"And now?"

"Your Grace is not observant, I fear; I am Her Ladys.h.i.+p's secretary."

"Of course--but still?" he came over quite close to her.

"If I had been the same person as the one you met at Mr. Strobridge's, you would not now have been obliged to contrive to come to the schoolroom to speak to me."

A dark flush mounted to his brow. She had touched a number of his refined sensibilities. Her words were so true and so simple, and her tone was quite calm, showing no personal emotion but merely as though she were announcing a fact.

"That is unfortunately true, but these are only ridiculous conventions, which please let us brush aside. May I really sit down for a minute?"

Katherine glanced at the clock; it was half-past three.

"Until a quarter to four, if you wish. I am afraid I cannot spare more time than that."

She pointed to the armchair which he took, and she reseated herself at the table, folding her hands. There was a moment's silence. The Duke was feeling uncomfortably disturbed. There had been a subtle rebuke conveyed in her late speech, which he knew he merited. He had no right to have come there.

"Are you not going to talk to me at all, then?" he almost blurted out.

"I will answer, of course, when Your Grace speaks; it is not for me to begin."

"Very well, I not only speak--I implore--I even order you to discontinue this ridiculous humility, this ridiculous continuance of 'Your Grace,'

resume the character of guest, and let us enjoy these miserable fifteen minutes--but first, I want to know what is the necessity for your total change of manner here? Gerard and Gwendoline knew that you were Lady Garribardine's secretary that night, but they did not consider it imperative to make a startling difference in their relations towards you because of that, as it seems that you would wish me to make now."

Katherine looked down and then up again straight into his eyes, a slight smile quivered round her mouth.

"That is quite different--they know me very well--and dear Miss Gwendoline is not very intelligent. I have been there before to help to entertain bores for Mr. Strobridge and Lady Beatrice, but that night I was there--because I wanted to see--Your Grace."

Here she looked down again suddenly. The Duke leaned forward eagerly; this was a strange confession!

"I wanted once to talk to a man as an equal, to feel what it was like to be a lady and not to have to remember to be respectful. So I deliberately asked Mr. Strobridge to arrange it--after I had heard you speak."

The Duke was much astonished--and gratified.

"How frank and delicious of you to tell me this! I thought the evening was enchanting--but why do you say such a silly thing as that you wanted to feel what it was like to be a lady? You could never have felt anything else."

"Indeed, I could; I am not a lady by birth, anything but! only I have tried to educate myself into being one, and it was so nice to have a chance of deciding if I had succeeded or no."