"Then poor Tibs isn't hurt," said the Duke with a sigh of relief, "for the cat I shot at was making a hearty meal of my young chrysanthemums and – "
"How dare you say that!" she demanded wrathfully, "when the poor thing is flying round the house with a – with a wounded tail?"
The young man grinned.
"If I've only shot a bit off her tail," he said cheerfully, "I am relieved. I thought she was down and out."
She was too indignant to make any reply.
"After all," mused the Duke with admirable philosophy, "a tail isn't one thing or another with a cat – now a horse or a cow needs a tail to keep the flies away, a dog needs 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 produce 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!"
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 Almanac 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 flower bed.
"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 in limb. I have a steady income of £1,200 a year and a silver property in Nevada that may very easily bring in ten thousand a year more. Also," he added, "I love you."
No woman can receive a proposal of marriage, even from an eccentric young man perched on the top of a step ladder, without the tremor of agitation peculiar to the occasion.
Alicia Terrill went hot and cold, flushed and paled with the intensity of her various emotions, but made no reply.
"Very well then!" said the triumphant Duke, "we will take it as settled. I will call – "
"Stop!" She had found her voice. Sifting her emotions indignation had bulked overwhelmingly and she faced him with flaming cheek and the lightning of scorn in her eyes.
"Did you dare think that your impudent proposal had met with any other success than the success it deserved?" she blazed. "Did you imagine because you are so lost to decency, and persecute a girl into listening to your odious offer, that you could bully her into acceptance?"
"Yes," he confessed without shame.
"If you were the last man in the world," she stormed, "I would not accept you. If you were a prince of the blood royal instead of being a wretched little continental duke with a purchased title" – she permitted herself the inaccuracy – "if you were a millionaire twenty times over, I would not marry you!"
"Thank you," said the Duke politely.
"You come here with your egotism and your braggadocio to play triton to our minnows, but I for one do not intend to be bullied into grovelling to your dukeship."
"Thank you," said the Duke again.
"But