She was very well acquainted with the workings of a great house, and the duties of the housekeeper and groom of the chambers. She saw from a technical point of view that these retainers of Valfreyne must be of a very high order of merit because of the result of their work; but even their intelligence could hardly have selected the volumes of her favourite authors, which she had discussed with the Duke, and which were placed in bookstands, with the "Letters of Abelard and Héloise" and a beautiful edition of "Eothen" out on the top! These silent testimonies of someone's personal thought gave her unbounded pleasure; they restored her submerged self-confidence, and made her eyes glow. It was divine to feel that he cared enough to have troubled to do this. The subtle flattery was exquisite. A burning wave of colour overspread Katherine's face, and her nostrils quivered. If the Duke could have seen her--he would have known that that quality he appreciated--the quality of real, natural passion--was abundantly present in her nature. Strong passion controlled by an iron will--a mixture which he thought quite ideal in the woman whom a man would choose to be the companion of his life. It was this particular suggestion about Katherine which had alike intoxicated the imaginations of these three far different men, Lord Algy, Gerard Strobridge and the Duke. The human, adorable warmth of emotion of which her white, smooth-skinned face and red, full mouth looked capable. Lady Garribardine had told her secretary to take off her hat, as she might be required to do a little work after lunch. "I shall settle with His Grace how I think the party had better sit, and then you can type anything we want." So Katherine was particularly careful to arrange her silvery hair becomingly, and looked the perfection of refined neatness as she followed her mistress back into the Duke's sitting-room, and then on in to luncheon in a smaller dining-room in another wing. They were only three at the meal, and the host talked of politics, and the party who were coming, and was gracious. He did not treat Katherine with the slightest condescension, nor with any special solicitude. If she had been an unknown niece of Lady Garribardine, his manner would have been the same. Katherine felt chilled again for the moment, and had never appeared more subdued. She slipped off back to her room when they went to have coffee in a small drawing-room, known as "The Gamester's Parlour," for in it was hung a world-known picture of the famous thoroughbred of that name, the riding of whom in a match against His Grace of Chandos' colt, Starlight, had been the cause of the third Duke's breaking his neck.