t her
to-morrow"...!--Long after Philip left the Duke to go to his own
chamber, these words rang in his ears. He suddenly felt the cords of
fate tightening round him. So real was the momentary illusion that, as
he passed through the great hall where hung the portraits of the Duke's
ancestors, he made a sudden outward motion of his arms as though to free
himself from a physical restraint. Strange to say, he had never foreseen
or reckoned with this matter of marriage in the designs of the Duke. He
had forgotten that sovereign dukes must make sure their succession even
unto the third and fourth generation. His first impulse had been to tell
the Duke that to introduce him to the Countess would be futile, for
he was already married. But the instant warning of the mind that his
Highness could never and would never accept the daughter of a Jersey
ship-builder restrained him. He had no idea that Guida's descent from
the noble de Mauprats of Chambery would weigh with the Duke, who would
only see in her some apple-cheeked peasant stumbling over her court
train.

It was curious that the Duke had never even hinted at the chance of his
being already married--yet not so curious either, since complete
silence concerning a wife was in itself declaration enough that he was
unmarried. He felt in his heart that a finer sense would have offered
Guida no such humiliation, for he knew the lie of silence to be as evil
as the lie of speech.

He had not spoken, partly because he had not yet become used to the fact
that he really was married. It had never been brought home to him by
the ever-present conviction of habit. One day of married life, or, in
reality, a few hours of married life, with Guida had given the sensation
more of a noble adventure than of a lasting condition. With distance
from that noble adventure, something of the glow of a lover's relations
had gone, and the subsequent tender enthusiasm of mind and memory was
not vivid enough to make him daring or--as he would have said--reckless
for its sake. Yet this same tender enthusiasm was sincere enough to
make him accept the fact of his marriage without discontent, even in the
glamour of new and alluring ambitions.

If it had been a question of giving up Guida or giving up the duchy of
Bercy--if that had been put before him as the sole alternative, he would
have decided as quickly in Guida's favour as he did when he thought it
was a question between the duchy and the navy. The str