第176章

The Duke of Stone had been sufficiently occupied with one of his slighter attacks of rheumatic gout to have been, so to speak, out of the running in the past weeks.His indisposition had not condemned him to the usual dullness, however.He had suffered less pain than was customary, and Mrs.Braddle had been more than usually interesting in conversation on those occasions when, in making him very comfortable in one way or another, she felt that a measure of entertainment would add to his well-being.His epicurean habit of mind tended toward causing him to find a subtle pleasure in the hearing of various versions of any story whatever.His intimacy with T.Tembarom had furnished forth many an agreeable mental repast for him.He had had T.

Tembarom's version of himself, the version of the county, the version of the uneducated class, and his own version.All of these had had varying shades of their own.He had found a cynically fine flavor in Palliser's version, which he had gathered through talk and processes of exclusion and inclusion.

"There is a good deal to be said for it," he summed it up."It's plausible on ordinary sophisticated grounds.T.Tembarom would say, `It looks sort of that way."'

As Mrs.Braddle had done what she could in the matter of expounding her views of the uncertainties of the village attitude, he had listened with stimulating interest.Mrs.Braddle's version on the passing of T.Tembarom stood out picturesquely against the background of the version which was his own--the one founded on the singular facts he had shared knowledge of with the chief character in the episode.He had not, like Miss Alicia, received a communication from Tembarom.This seemed to him one of the attractive features of the incident.It provided opportunity for speculation.Some wild development had called the youngster away in a rattling hurry.Of what had happened since his departure he knew no more than the villagers knew.What had happened for some months before his going he had watched with the feeling of an intelligently observant spectator at a play.He had been provided with varied emotions by the fantastic drama.He had smiled; he had found himself moved once or twice, and he had felt a good deal of the thrill of curious uncertainty as to what the curtain would rise and fall on.The situation was such that it was impossible to guess.Results could seem only to float in the air.One thing might happen; so might another, so might a dozen more.What he wished really to attain was some degree of certainty as to what was likely to occur in any case to the American Temple Barholm.

He felt, the first time he drove over to call on Miss Alicia, that his indisposition and confinement to his own house had robbed him of something.They had deprived him of the opportunity to observe shades of development and to hear the expressing of views of the situation as it stood.He drove over with views of his own and with anticipations.

He had reason to know that he would encounter in the dear lady indications of the feeling that she had reached a crisis.There was a sense of this crisis impending as one mounted the terrace steps and entered the hall.The men-servants endeavored to wipe from their countenances any expression denoting even a vague knowledge of it.He recognized their laudable determination to do so.Burrill was monumental in the unconsciousness of his outward bearing.

Miss Alicia, sitting waiting on Fate in the library, wore precisely the aspect he had known she would wear.She had been lying awake at night and she had of course wept at intervals, since she belonged to the period the popular female view of which had been that only the unfeeling did not so relieve themselves in crises of the affections.

Her eyelids were rather pink and her nice little face was tired.

"It is very, very kind of you to come," she said, when they shook hands."I wonder "--her hesitance was touching in its obvious appeal to him not to take the wrong side,--"I wonder if you know how deeply troubled I have been?""You see, I have had a touch of my abominable gout, and my treasure of a Braddle has been nursing me and gossiping," he answered."So, of course I know a great deal.None of it true, I dare say.I felt I must come and see you, however."He looked so neat and entirely within the boundaries of finished and well-dressed modernity and every-day occurrence, in his perfectly fitting clothes, beautifully shining boots, and delicate fawn gaiters, that she felt a sort of support in his mere aspect.The mind connected such almost dapper freshness and excellent taste only with unexaggerated incidents and a behavior which almost placed the stamp of absurdity upon the improbable in circumstance.The vision of disorderly and illegal possibilities seemed actually to fade into an unreality.

"If Mr.Palford and Mr.Grimby knew him as I know him --as--as you know him--" she added with a faint hopefulness.

"Yes, if they knew him as we know him that would make a different matter of it," admitted the duke, amiably.But, thought Miss Alicia, he might only have put it that way through consideration for her feelings, and because he was an extremely polished man who could not easily reveal to a lady a disagreeable truth.He did not speak with the note of natural indignation which she thought she must have detected if he had felt as she felt herself.He was of course a man whose manner had always the finish of composure.He did not seem disturbed or even very curious--only kind and most polite.