at the
Duke would call on the following morning. I do not think that he had
meant to add this when he began his note; but then children, who want
the top brick, want it so badly, and cry for it so perversely!

Of course Madame Goesler was at home. But even then she had not made
up her mind. She had made up her mind only to this,--that he should
be made to speak plainly, and that she would take time for her reply.
Not even with such a gem as the Duke's coronet before her eyes, would
she jump at it. Where there was so much doubt, there need at least be
no impatience.

"You ran away the other day, Duke, because you could not resist the
charm of that little boy," she said, laughing.

"He is a dear little boy,--but it was not that," he answered.

"Then what was it? Your niece carried you off in a whirl-wind. She
was come and gone, taking you with her, in half a minute."

"She had disturbed me when I was thinking of something," said the
Duke.

"Things shouldn't be thought of,--not so deeply as that." Madame
Goesler was playing with a bunch of his grapes now, eating one or
two from a small china plate which had stood upon the table, and
he thought that he had never seen a woman so graceful and yet
so natural. "Will you not eat your own grapes with me? They are
delicious;--flavoured with the poor queen's sorrows." He shook his
head, knowing that it did not suit his gastric juices to have to deal
with fruit eaten at odd times. "Never think, Duke. I am convinced
that it does no good. It simply means doubting, and doubt always
leads to error. The safest way in the world is to do nothing."

"I believe so," said the Duke.

"Much the safest. But if you have not sufficient command over
yourself to enable you to sit in repose, always quiet, never
committing yourself to the chance of any danger,--then take a leap in
the dark; or rather many leaps. A stumbling horse regains his footing
by persevering in his onward course. As for moving cautiously, that I
detest."

"And yet one must think;--for instance, whether one will succeed or
not."

"Take that for granted always. Remember, I do not recommend motion at
all. Repose is my idea of life;--repose and grapes."

The Duke sat for a while silent, taking his repose as far as the
outer man was concerned, looking at his top brick of the chimney, as
from time to time she ate one of his grapes. Probably she did not eat
above half-a-dozen of them altogether, but he thought that the g