“Then there’s a lover behind the scenes,” says her Grace, sticking a jonquil and laughing. “Why be so cruel in your judgment, Madam? Hasn’t Mrs. Bracegirdle carried her reputation unspotted through the world and she a famous player? Don’t your Grace recall Congreve’s verse?” And in a very mellow and manly tenor the Duke sang _sotta voce_: “Pious Celinda goes to prayers Whene’er I ask a favour, And yet the tender fool’s in tears When she believes I’ll leave her. Would I were free from this constraint, Or else had power to win her: Would she could make of me a saint, Or I of her a sinner.” “But he couldn’t—he never did!” concluded his Grace. “Not though he was seven years younger than the lady, and wrote all his plays about her charms! Then why not a chaste—a disdainful Polly also!” “One swallow doesn’t make a summer! But after all, since we expect nothing from these women we’re the less disappointed. Has my Lord Baltimore essayed his enchantments?” “Fie, Madam, fie! Would you have me a traitor? The American Prince revolves on his own princely orbit. I’m but—Benedick, the married man. How should I know what his Brilliance does? I do but look through the window of my prison.” He spoke half melancholy, half bitter. Indeed there were times when his fetters galled him unbearably, and the mystery of his miserable married life was heavy on his spirits. His intimates knew that cloud on his brow and respected it. The Duchess stretched a fair hand weighted with great emeralds and laid it on his, but said nothing save with her eyes, softened and kind, for the nonce. A moment past and she spoke under her breath; “A long punishment for a moment’s madness, my friend!” “And not even my own madness! I have not so much as that poor consolation to aid me in bearing my punishment. A boy of eighteen and— But I have sworn no word shall pass my lips. What use hath the world for us if we growl and whine? No, Madam, help me to laugh. What were we discussing?” “Polly,” says she, with a sadness in her eyes that became her very well. “But, Bolton, before we quit the subject, tell me this—that am your friend. Is there never a woman in London that you could make your mistress?” “Thousands!” says he with a harsh laugh. “No—no. I meant not so. But a good woman, beautiful and kind, who might mend the sore place in your heart and give you at least some sort of a home? You’re thirty-two now—Four years older than me,—and even I don’t always feel young whatever way my looks may lie. You need a home. ’Tis a thing often done, Bolton. Yourself knows that I could run off a list this minute of half a hundred men that have done this and who thinks the worse?” “I’ll ruin no woman’s life!” says he, with his dark sad eyes upon the ground. “There’s many would think it promotion, not ruin.”