All this time neither had made any motion toward sitting down, but stood regarding each other, alert and watchful. It was Nancy Stair who took the first move. Coming over to the duke she put one of her hands on his breast and stood looking up at him out of those gray eyes of whose power she was not unconscious. "My lord," she said, "I, who have had the handling of people much of my life, have learned to recognize power when I see it, and I see it in you. There's just naught you can't do that you set your mind to." None ever claimed that in his relation with women the duke was afflicted with Pitcairn's trouble, and a blue heat came in his eye at her touch of him. "You're not afraid of me, Nancy Stair?" She looked up at him from under her eyelids and laughed. "Not the least bit in the world, your grace." "And ye think, mayhap, that just because ye're a beautiful woman--aye, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen--that ye can come to me and ask favors, thinking that I shall expect nothing in return?" "What I have heard of you would lead me far from such conclusion," Nancy answered, with a smile. He looked at her in silence, with an amused expression in his face. "I like you," he said at length, and a dare-devil look came into his eyes, a look which showed at once his strength and his weakness. "I like your fearlessness as well as your honesty. I can mate your frankness by my own. I have long desired to know what is said of me, and have a mind to make a compact with you, if you will. I hear lies on every side. They are the stuff of which my daily bread is baked. Come," he cried, "a bargain between us. The naked truth which ye have heard concerning me in return for the pardon of Timothy Lapraik." "It's a bargain between us, your grace." "There will be no slurring over, no soft adjustments?" "You need have no fear. If you knew me better you would not ask that," Nancy answered with a smile. "You shall have the unsoftened truth, so far as it is mine to speak." The duke motioned her to a seat by the fire and stood opposite to her, changing the candles on the shelf above to throw the light full upon her face as she sat before the fire. "'Tis an awkward position you put me in," Nancy laughed. "'Tis grace itself compared to the awkwardness of mine," the duke returned with a dry smile. "The first thing I ever heard of you," she began, "was that you were known by common repute as the 'Lying Duke of the Highlands.'" The duke bowed. "I have heard from high and low that you have neither the code of a gentleman nor the common honesty of business affairs. It is even argued that you have not the moral perception to see your own lack in such matters." The duke looked at her steadily for a moment again and his lips curled back into a smile. "You are openly accused of thefts in India--of defrauding the ignorant natives of their lands."