hers."

"One might think who overheard us, my lord duke," Nancy broke in with a
laugh and the light of humor in her eyes by which she could make
another smile at any time, "that we were collegians having a critical
discussion. It was not concerning poetry that I came to you to-night,
your grace. It was to ask a favor."

"Pitcairn said you would come," the duke answered her blandly, taking
out his watch and looking at it with a smile. "He said you would come
before you went to the Duchess of Gordon's rout. He even named the
exact time within a quarter of an hour."

"Mr. Pitcairn is a very wonderful man," Nancy returned.

"He's a poor hand at description," responded the duke, with a heat of
admiration for her in his tone.

"It depends somewhat," said Nancy, "upon what he has the describing
of." And in this speech the way women know how to belittle an enemy is
clearly to be seen. "He can describe a barn to a farmer, a road to a
surveyor, or a church to an architect, so that they fall into an
ecstasy of admiration of his parts. When it comes to a woman it's a
different matter. Mr. Pitcairn doesn't know a woman. He's not, rightly
speaking, a man. As Mr. Carmichael says, 'He's just a head.'"

"It's a curious head," the duke answers, "a curious head and a very
clear one."

"A clear head to prosecute; never to defend," Nancy responded; "which
leads me to the cause of my visit. I have come to ask for the pardon of
Timothy Lapraik."

The duke dropped his eyelids, and a strange light shone from under
them.

"You compliment me, Mistress Stair, in thinking I have the power to
undo that which was settled by the law of your country and a jury tried
and true. I took no part in the affair; the prosecution was not mine;
in a word, the thing is perhaps beyond my power, had I the desire to
get him a pardon, which, however, I have not."

All this time neither had made any motion toward sitting down, but
stood regarding each other, alert and watchful. It was Nancy Stair who
took the first move. Coming over to the duke she put one of her hands
on his breast and stood looking up at him out of those gray eyes of
whose power she was not unconscious.

"My lord," she said, "I, who have had the handling of people much of my
life, have learned to recognize power when I see it, and I see it in
you. There's just naught you can't do that you set your mind to."

None ever claimed that in his relation with women the duke was
afflicted wit