Leslie's Loyalty. Garvice Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ of a magician's wand change this crooked body of mine for something like your own."

      "I would if I could, Dolph," said the other, bending over him, and laying a pair of strong hands soothingly on the invalid's bent shoulders.

      "I know that, Yorke. But you cannot, can you? I dare say you think I am a peevish, discontented wretch, and that I ought, as the poor Emperor of Germany said, to bear my pain without complaining – ."

      "No, Dolph; I think you complain very little, and face the music first rate," put in the other.

      "Thanks. I try to most times, and I could succeed better than I do if I were always alone, but sometimes – ," he sighed bitterly. "Why is it that the world is so false, Yorke? Are there no honest men besides you and Grey, and half a dozen others I could mention? And are there no honest women at all?"

      Yorke Auchester raised his eyebrows and laughed.

      "What's wrong with the women?" he said.

      The duke leaned his head upon his hand, and partially hid his face, which had suddenly become red.

      "Everything is wrong with them, Yorke," he said, gravely and in a low voice. "You know, or perhaps you do not know, how I esteem, reverence, respect a woman; perhaps because I dare not love them."

      Yorke Auchester nodded.

      "If all the men felt as you do about women there would be no bad ones in the world, Dolph," he said.

      "To me there is something sacred in the very word. My heart expands, grows warm in the presence of a good woman. I cannot look at a beautiful girl without thinking – don't misunderstand me, Yorke."

      "No, no, old chap!"

      "I love, I reverence them; and yet they have made me fly from London, have caused me almost to vow that I will never go back; that I will hide my misshapen self for the rest of my weary days – ."

      "Why Dolph – ."

      "Listen," said the duke. "Look at me, Yorke. Ah, it is unnecessary. You know what I am. A thing for women to pity, to shudder at – not to love! And yet" – he hid his face – "some of them have tried to persuade me that I —I– could inspire a young girl with love; that I —I– oh, think of it, Yorke! – that I had only to offer myself as a husband to the most beautiful, the fairest, straightest, queenliest of them, to be accepted!"

      Yorke Auchester leaned over him.

      "You take these things too seriously, Dolph," he said, soothingly. "It's – it's the way of the world, and you can't better it; you must take it as it comes."

      "The way of the world! That a girl – young, beautiful, graceful – should be sold by her mother and father, should be willing to sell herself – ah, Yorke! – to a thing like me. Is that the way of the world? What a wicked, heartless, vicious world, then; and what an unhappy wretch am I! What fools they are, too, Yorke! They think it is so fine a thing to wear a ducal coronet! Ha, ha!" He laughed with sad bitterness. "So fine, that they would barter their souls to the evil one to feel the pressure of that same coronet on their brows, to hear other women call them 'Your Grace.' Oh, Yorke, what fools! How I could open their eyes if they would let me! Look at me. I am the Duke of Rothbury, Knight of the Garter – poor garter!" and he looked at his thin leg – "and what else? I almost forget some of my titles; and I would swap them all for a straight back and stalwart limbs like yours. But, Yorke, to share those titles, how many women would let me limp to the altar on their arms!"

      He laughed again, still more bitterly.

      "Sometimes, when some sweet-faced girl, with the look of an angel in her eyes, with a voice like a heavenly harmony, is making what they call 'a dead set' at me, I have hard work to restrain myself from telling her what I think of her and those who set her at me. Yorke, it is this part of the business which makes my life almost unendurable, and it is only by running away from every one who knows, or has heard of, the 'poor' Duke of Rothbury that I can put up with existence."

      "Poor old chap," murmured Lord Auchester.

      "Just now," continued the duke, "as we drove up to the door, I caught sight of a beautiful girl at the window opposite. I saw her face grow soft with pity, with the angelic pity of a woman, which, though it stings and cuts into one like a cut from a whip, I try to be grateful for. She pitied me, not knowing who and what I am. Tell her that I am the Duke of Rothbury, and in five minutes or less that angelic look of compassion will be exchanged for the one which you see on the face of the hunter as his prey comes within sight. She will think, 'He is ugly, crooked, maimed for life; but he is a man, and I can therefore marry him; he is a duke and I should be a duchess.' And so, like a moral poison, like some plague, I blight the souls of the best and purest. Listen to her now; that is the girl singing. What is it? I can hear the words."

      He held up his hand. Leslie was singing, quite unconscious of the two listeners.

      "My sweet girl love with frank blue eyes,

      Though years have passed I see you still;

      There, where you stood beside the mill,

      Beneath the bright autumnal skies.

      Though years have passed I love you yet;

      Do you still remember, or do you forget?"

      "A nice voice," said Yorke Auchester, approvingly.

      "Yes; the voice of a girl-angel. No doubt she is one. She needs only to be informed that an unmarried duke is within reach, and she'll be in a hurry to drop to the earth, and in her hurry to reach and secure him will not mind dragging her white wings in the mud."

      "Women are built that way," said Yorke Auchester, concisely.

      The duke sighed.

      "Oh, yes, they are all alike. Yorke, what a fine duke you would have made! What a mischievous, spiteful old cat Fate is, to make me a duke and you only a younger son! How is it you don't hate and envy me, Yorke?"

      "Because I'm not a cad and a beast, I suppose," replied the young fellow, pleasantly. "Why, Dolph, you have been the best friend a man ever had – ."

      "Most men hate their best friends," put in the duke, with a sad smile.

      "Where should I have been but for you?" continued Yorke Auchester, ignoring the parenthesis. "You have lugged me out of Queer Street by the scruff of my neck half a dozen times. Every penny I ever had came from you, and I've had a mint, a complete mint – and, by the way, Dolph, I want some more."

      The duke laughed wearily.

      "Take as much as you want, Yorke," he said. "But for you, the money would grow and grow till it buried and smothered me. I cannot spend it; you must help me."

      "I will; I always have," said Yorke Auchester, laughing. "It's a pity you haven't got some expensive fad, Dolph – pictures, or coins, or first editions, or racing."

      The duke shrugged his shoulders.

      "I have only one fad," he said; "to be strong and straight, and that not even the Rothbury money can gratify. But I do get some pleasure out of your expenditure. I fancy you enjoy yourself."

      "I do."

      "Yes? That is well. Some day you will marry – ."

      Yorke Auchester's hand dropped from the duke's shoulder.

      "Marry СКАЧАТЬ