Margaret saw the Duke in the evening. He gave her a document, unsealed, in a huge envelope, bidding her keep it in a safe place, for the use of their mutual friend, in case he should need it. She said she would give it to Claudius when he came back; and then she told the Duke about her drive with Barker and the accident. The Duke looked grave.
"Of course," he said, "I introduced Barker to you, and it would seem very odd if I were to warn you against him now. All the same, Countess, I have had the honour of being your friend for some time, and I must say I have sometimes regretted that I brought him to your house." He reddened a little after he had spoken, fearing she might have misunderstood him. "I wish," he added, to make things clearer, "that I could have brought you Claudius without Barker." Then he reddened still more, and wished he had said nothing. Margaret raised her eyebrows. Perhaps she could have wished as much herself, but she dropped the subject.
"When are you coming back from the West, Duke," she asked, busying herself in arranging some books on her table. The hotel sitting-room was so deadly dreary to the eye that she was trying to make it look as if it had not been lately used as a place of burial.
"It may be two months before I am here again. A--about the time Claudius comes over, I should think."
"I wish you were going to stay," said Margaret simply, "or Lady Victoria. I shall be so lonely."
"You will have Miss Skeat," suggested his Grace.
"Oh, it's not that," said she. "I shall not be alone altogether, for there is poor Nicholas, you know. I must take care of him; and then I suppose some of these people will want to amuse me, or entertain me--not that they are very entertaining; but they mean well. Besides, my being mixed up in a Nihilist persecution adds to my social value." The Duke, however, was not listening, his mind being full of other things--what there was of it, and his heart had long determined to sympathise with Margaret in her troubles; so there was nothing more to be said.
"Dear me," thought Miss Skeat, "what a pity! They say she might have had the Duke when she was a mere child--and to think that she should have refused him! So admirably suited to each other!" But Miss Skeat, as she sat at the other end of the room trying to find "what it was that people saw so funny" in the _Tramp Abroad_, was mistaken about her patroness and the very high and mighty personage from the aristocracy. The Duke was much older than Margaret, and had been married before he had ever seen her. It was only because they were such good friends that the busybodies said they had just missed being man and wife.
