Yes, how ill his life had gone, and he was now fifty-three years old, and if it were true that he felt enough to have taken the trouble to score that sentence in her book, his present frame of mind could not be altogether happy either, and she sighed--why was happiness so often a forbidden fruit? For a second before lunch she happened to be standing near him, and so some kind of words were necessary for politeness' sake. "I hope you find your room comfortable, Miss Bush, and that you have all that you want." She looked straight into his eyes, and there was a world of meaning in hers as she answered. "Everything, thank you--and I am especially interested in the books. The last guest who slept there must have taken liberties with your volumes and put strange pencillings under some of the paragraphs, which I only discovered last night." "It was a man who occupied the room lately. What presumption he showed!" "Yes, I wondered if you knew about it, the most significant marking is in the letters of 'Abelard and Héloise.' The scribbler had a turn for sentiment, it would seem, and probably was suffering from hallucinations as to his own state, which he imagined to be one of subjection." "No, he was a level-headed fellow, who was not particularly happy, though. I remember, and no doubt he found solace in reading about the despairing passion of those two, and in underlining that passage which records _Abelard's_ rebellion against pain so like his own." Katherine sighed. "Happiness, alas! lies in the hand only of the very strong," and she passed on to another group. And the Duke frowned a little as they went in to lunch. Sir John Townly came over in the afternoon, as he had been invited to do, and Lady Garribardine intimated to her secretary that now she must take this incubus off her hands; so Katherine obediently proposed a stroll round the wonderful tulip beds, which were in full bloom. And Mordryn saw them go off together from the window where he stood. "I really do not think it looks so ridiculous after all," Lady Garribardine remarked to him reflectively, complacence in her tone. "He is quite a fine figure of a man except for his perfectly bald head, and that does not show now in his hat." The Duke made an exclamation of disgust. "Poor Miss Bush!" "I do hope she won't be foolish, but she has been so odd lately; I cannot understand these girls." "Odd?" "Yes--sad-looking and quiet--Of course I would not force her into anything she did not like, but still, Sir John would be better than some attractive and penniless young guardsman with nothing to offer but love's young dream.--There are one or two who come over from Windsor who rather hang about."