This was a foundation easy to build on. One so considerate and obliging must be a great gentleman so to condescend to one in the position of an actress—whose only road to the companionship of gentlemen lay through dishonour. This man put forward no pretension to gallantry in her favour, and she must be quick to recognize the distinction between his Grace and the other men who buzzed about her. It is true, and she knew it, that he had the reputation that most men of his rank have with women, but he did not sharpen his weapons on the Duchess’s dependent. He would have despised himself otherwise since her Grace made him welcome to her rooms where she sat with Diana in private and ’tis strange how natural, simple and easy the talk of these three persons, so unlike each other, became as the days past by. Therefore his way of thinking was not unfamiliar to her. She knew that cloud on his brow, and would have given much to charm it away by some innocent kindness such as a sister might bestow, were it not for the vast distance between them of rank and sex. Still, she ventured a little, timidly. “Your Grace, I was happy tonight, it is true, but I had scarce left the stage when fear and trouble awaited me. And so I think it will be always—brief sunshine and a cloud to swallow it up. I expect no better. “Fear and trouble!” says the Duke earnestly, “but how and why? Sure there could be none so base as spoil your hard-earned triumph. Tell me what caused it? Now I look closer at you I see tear-marks about your eyes. Indeed this night should have been joy unmixt and perfect.” “When is it so?” she asked, avoiding his question— “Do I not see your Grace that hath youth, health, riches, splendour—everything, sad enough sometimes? Who then shall be happy?” “Youth, health, riches, splendour!” he repeated— “Yes, but set against them, Mrs. Fenton,—loneliness, sorrow, shame, hatred.— Do that sum in subtraction and what is left? Nothing.” “Yet your Grace is gay often?” “How could a man live otherwise? But my life is desolation. O fool that I am to talk thus and to a young and beautiful and happy woman. What should you know, child, of care—you that have life in radiant sunshine before you? I ask your pardon for being so selfish as to remind you that there are clouds even in a summer sky.” “I did not need reminding. My life is a struggle too, your Grace.” Her eyes dropt, and her cheek flushed. “I know your reason,” he said, looking earnestly at her. “’Tis a hard case that men do not nor cannot distinguish a legitimate prey from one that ’tis cruelty to attempt. There have been moments when I despised my whole sex—not sparing myself—for our blindness and selfishness in this respect.”