The Duke in the Suburbs | Page 6

a tail to wag when he's happy, but a cat's

tail--"
She stopped him with a majestic gesture. She was still atop of the
ladder, and was too pretty to be ridiculous.
"It is useless arguing with you," she said coldly; "my mother will take
steps to secure us freedom from a repetition of this annoyance."
"Send me a lawyer's letter," he suggested. "that is the thing one does in
the suburbs, isn't it?"
He did not see her when she answered, for she had made a dignified
descent from her shaky perch.
"Our acquaintance with suburban etiquette," said her voice coldly. "is
probably more limited than your own."
"Indeed?" with polite incredulity.
"Even in Brockley," said the angry voice, "one expects to meet
people--"
She broke off abruptly.
"Yes," he suggested with an air of interest, "people--?"
He waited a little for her reply. He heard a smothered exclamation of
annoyance and beckoned Hank. That splendid lieutenant produced a
step - ladder and steadied it as the Duke made a rapid ascent.
"You were saying?" he said politely.
She was holding the hem of her dress and examining ruefully the havoc
wrought on a flounce by a projecting nail.
"You were about to say--?"
She looked up at him with an angry frown.

"Even in Brockley it is considered an outrageous piece of bad manners
to thrust oneself upon people who do not wish to know one!"
"Keep to the subject, please," he said severely, "we were discussing the
cat."
She favoured him with the faintest shrug.
"I'm afraid I cannot discuss any matter with you," she said coldly. "You
have taken a most unwarrantable liberty." She turned to walk into the
house.
"You forget," he said gently, "I am a duke. I have certain feudal
privileges, conferred by a grateful dynasty, one of which, I believe, is
to shoot cats."
"I can only regret," she fired back at him, from the door of the little
conservatory that led into the house, "that I cannot accept your
generous estimate of yourself. The ridiculous court that is being paid to
you by the wretched people in this road must have turned your head. I
should prefer the evidence of De Gotha before I even accepted your
miserable title."
Slam!
She had banged the door behind her.
"Here I say!" called the alarmed Duke. "please come back! Aren't I in
De Gotha?"
He looked down on Hank.
"Hank," he said soberly, "did you hear that tremendous charge? She
don't believe there is no Mrs. Harris!"
CHAPTER V
Two days later he ascended the step--ladder again.

With leather gloves, a gardening apron, and with the aid of a stick she
was coaxing some drooping Chinese daisies into the upright life.
"Good morning," he said pleasantly: "what extraordinary weather we
are having."
She made the most distant acknowledgment and continued in her
attentions to the flowers.
"And how is the cat?" he asked with all the bland benevolence of an
Episcopalian bench. She made no reply.
"Poor Tibby," he said with gentle melancholy:
"Poor quiet soul, poor modest lass, Thine is a tale that shall not pass."
The girl made no response.
"On the subject of De Gotha," he went on with an apologetic hesitation,
"I--"
The girl straightened her back and turned a flushed face towards him. A
strand of hair had loosened and hung limply over her forehead, and this
she brushed back quickly.
"As you insist upon humiliating me," she said. "let me add to my self -
abasement by apologizing for the injustice I did you. My copy of the
Almanach De Gotha is an old one and the page on which your name
occurs has been torn out evidently by one of my maids--"
"For curling paper, I'll be bound," he wagged his head wisely.
"Immortal Caesar, dead and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep
the wind away;
The Duke's ancestral records well may share The curly splendours of
the housemaid's hair."
As he improvised she turned impatiently to the flowerbed.

"Miss Terrill!" he called, and when she looked up with a resigned air,
he said: "Cannot we be friends?"
Her glance was withering.
"Don't sniff," he entreated earnestly. "don't despise me because I'm a
duke. Whatever I am I am a gentleman."
"You're a most pertinacious and impertinent person," said the
exasperated girl.
"Alliteration's artful aid," quoth the Duke admiringly. "Listen--"
He was standing on the top step of the ladder balancing himself rather
cleverly, for Hank was away shopping.
"Miss Terrill," he began. There was no mistaking the earnestness of his
voice, and the girl listened in spite of herself. "Miss Terrill, will you
marry me?"
The shock of the proposal took away her breath.
"I am young and of good family; fairly good looking and sound