The young man grew red and hot with a mixture of embarrassment and resentful excitement, stung by the look and the tone. “It is your daughter,” he said, “who has given me permission to come to you. It is of Lady Jane I want to speak. You cannot think me less worthy of her than I think myself.” “Lady Jane!” The Duke grew pale; he took his hand out of his waistcoat, and stared at the audacious suitor with dismay. Then he recovered himself with an effort, and snatched at a smile as if it had been something that hung on the wall, and put it on tremulously. “Ah! ah! I see,” he added. “You think she might render you assistance. Speak a good word for you?--eh?” The attempt to be jocular, which was entirely out of his habits, convulsed his countenance. “Yes, yes, I see! that is what you mean,” he said. There was a pause, and the two men looked each other in the face. A monarch confronted by the whole embodied force of revolution--scorning it, hating it--yet with an insidious suggestion of alarm underneath all--on one hand; and on the other the revolution embodied--pale with lofty anger and a sense of its own rights, yet not without a regret, a sympathetic pang for the old king about to be discrowned. The mutual contemplation lasted not more than a few moments, though it seemed so long. Then the Duke turned on his heel with a grimace which in his agitation he intended for a laugh. “I prefer,” he said, “on the whole, that Lady Jane should not be appealed to. My disposition to serve you was personal. The ladies of my family are not less amicably inclined, I am sure; but I do not wish them to be mixed up--in short you will understand that, wishing you well in every way, I must advise you to trust to your own attractions in a matrimonial point of view. I cannot permit my daughter to interfere.” He had moved about while he was speaking, but at the end returned to his place and fixed Winton with the commanding look, straight in the eyes, of a man determined to intimidate an applicant. It was the least successful way in which he could have attempted to influence the present suitor. Winton’s excitement rose to such a pitch that he recovered his calm and self-possession as if by magic. “I feel that I have explained myself badly,” he said, “and this is not a matter on which there can be any misunderstanding between us. I must ask you to listen to me calmly for a moment.” “Calmly, my good sir! your matrimonial affairs, however important to you, can scarcely be expected to excite me,” cried his Grace sharply, with irritation in every tone. “There can be nothing in the world so exciting--to both of us,” said Winton. “My Lord Duke, I come from your daughter, from Jane.” “Sir!” cried the Duke. But no capitals are capable of expressing the force, the fury, of this outburst, which struck Winton like a projectile, full in the face so to speak. He made a step backward in momentary dismay.