Leslie's Loyalty. Garvice Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "This is as much as I can digest," he said, tapping the basin before him indifferently. "Now tell me the news, Yorke – your grace."

      Yorke laughed.

      "News? I don't think there's any you don't know."

      "Not London news, I dare say," said the duke; "though I don't know much of that. I don't go out more often than I am obliged to. I don't dance, you see," he smiled, "and if I go to the theater I find that I distract the attention of the audience from what is going on upon the stage. I suppose they consider me as interesting, as good, if not better than any play. And as to plays, there aren't many good ones now. The last time I went was to that burlesque at the Diadem Theater, and everybody seemed 'gone,' as you call it, on that dancer. What's her name, eh?"

      Yorke Auchester was in the act of disboning his second sole. He stopped and looked up, paused for a moment with a rather singular expression on his frank, handsome face.

      "Finetta, do you mean?" he said, slowly.

      "Yes, that's the name, I think," said the duke, stirring his beef tea as if he hated it; "so called, I suppose, because she has finished so many good men and true. They tell me that she has completely ruined poor Charlie Farquhar. Is that so, Yorke?"

      Yorke seemed very much ingrossed in his sole.

      "Oh, Farquhar!" he said. "Yes, he is stone-broke; but I don't know that Fin – I mean Finetta – has had so much to do with it. Charlie was under the delusion that he understood horses, and – ."

      "I see," said the duke. "Poor lad! I suppose if I offered to help him he would be quite offended?"

      "I don't know. You might try," said Yorke, dryly.

      "I'll see. But about this same Finetta. She was pretty – ."

      Yorke Auchester looked up with a laugh. It was not a particularly merry one.

      "Only pretty?"

      "Well, yes, to my eyes; but I'm rather particular and hard to please, I'll admit. Oh, yes, she was pretty, and she danced," he smiled, "yes, she danced without doubt. The young men in the stalls seemed infatuated; but I didn't fall down and worship with the rest. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, though I'm not much more than your age. Anyhow, a very little of Mlle. Finetta goes a long way with me. Do you know her, Yorke?"

      "Oh, everybody knows Finetta," replied Yorke Auchester, carelessly – a little too carelessly.

      "And some, it seems, like poor Charlie Farquhar, know her not wisely but too well. Well, I've not been to the theater since, and that's six weeks ago. Is that chop tender?"

      "First rate; try it."

      "I dare not; but I enjoy seeing you eat it. I've often had thoughts of having a man with a good appetite that I might have the pleasure of seeing him eat a square meal while I sit cursing my beef tea and gruel. The night I went to the Diadem I took Eleanor – ."

      Yorke Auchester suspended his fork half way to his mouth, and looked at his cousin.

      "Oh," he said, and whatever the "Oh" might have been intended to mean it was singularly dull and inexpressive.

      "Yes, it was her birthday, and she asked me to take her. That was kind of her, wasn't it?"

      "Was it?" said Yorke, dryly.

      "Well, I think so. You mean that most young girls would like to go to the theater with the Duke of Rothbury, or for the matter of that any other duke – unmarried; but that's because they would go with the hope of repeating the visit some day as his duchess. But Eleanor knows that I should not marry her; we have come to a plain understanding on the subject."

      "I see," said Yorke Auchester. "I suppose this is Dartmoor mutton? It's very good."

      "I dare say," assented the duke, with a smile. "But to return to my mutton, which is Eleanor. It was her birthday, and I took her to the theater and gave her a small present; the Rothbury pearls."

      "Some persons would call an elephant small," remarked Yorke, laconically.

      "Did – did you give her anything, Yorke?" asked the duke, almost shyly, ignoring the comments.

      Yorke Auchester took a draught of the admirable claret which Grey had brought down with him, before replying.

      "I?" he said, carelessly. "No. Why should I? What would be the use. She doesn't expect anything better than a penwiper or a shilling prayer book from a pauper like me, and she has tin enough to buy a million of 'em if she wants them," and he attacked the custard.

      The duke leaned back in his chair, and looked at the handsome face of his cousin, with its frank and free, and happily devil-may-care expression.

      "I've a notion that Eleanor would value anything in the way of a penwiper or a prayer book you might give her, Yorke," he said.

      "Not she. It's only your fancy."

      "I think not," said the duke.

      He was silent for a moment, then he said, thoughtfully and gravely:

      "At the risk of repeating myself, I will say once more that it is a pity you are not the Duke of Rothbury, Yorke."

      "Thanks, but a better man's got the berth, you see."

      "And a still greater pity that you can't be the future one. But you can't, can you, Yorke?"

      "Not while Uncle Eustace and his two boys come before me, and as they are all as healthy as plowboys, and likely to live to the eighties, every one of 'em, there doesn't seem much chance, Dolph!"

      "No," said the duke, in a low voice. "It's rather hard on the British Peerage that the present Duke of Rothbury should be a hunchback and a cripple, and that the next should be a miser, while the young man who would adorn the title – ."

      "Should be a penniless young scamp," put in Yorke, lightly.

      The duke colored.

      "Well, barring the scamp, that was in my thoughts. Do you ever think of the future, Yorke?"

      "Never, if I can help it," responded the young fellow, cutting himself a piece of stilton.

      The duke smiled, but rather gravely.

      "I do, and when I think of it, I wish that I could secure it for you. But you know that I can't, Yorke. Every penny, or nearly every penny, goes to Lord Eustace."

      "Don't let it trouble you, Dolph," said Yorke Auchester. "Of course the money must go to keep up the title. Every fellow understands that. Heaven knows I've had enough as it is."

      "And so you didn't give Eleanor a birthday present," said the duke, slowly. "That was – to put it delicately, Yorke – thoughtless of you. Will you give me that box, the leather one? Thanks."

      He opened the box and took out a small morocco case, and tossed it across the table.

      "I had an idea you would forget it, and so – ."

      "By Jove, that's pretty!" broke in Yorke.

      He had opened the case and revealed a gold bracelet, not set with diamonds, but of plain though first-rate workmanship. СКАЧАТЬ