Lord Arleigh had
kept his promise--he, had been her true friend, with her husband's full
permission. The duke was too noble and generous himself to feel any such
ignoble passion as jealousy--he was far too confiding. To be jealous of
his wife would never have entered his mind; nor was there the least
occasion for it. If Lord Arleigh had been her own brother, their
relationship could not have been of a more blameless kind; even the
censorious world of fashion, so quick to detect a scandal, so merciless
in its enjoyment of one, never presumed to cast an aspersion on this
friendship. There was something so frank, so open about it, that blame
was an impossibility. If the duke was busy or engaged when his wife
wanted to ride or drive, he asked her cousin Lord Arleigh to take his
place, as he would have asked his own brother. If the duke could not
attend opera or ball, Lord Arleigh was at hand. He often said it was a
matter of perplexity to him which was his own home--whether he liked
Beechgrove, Verdun Royal or Vere Court best.
"No one was ever so happy, so blessed with true friends as I am," he
would say; at which speech the young duchess would smile that strange
fathomless smile so few understood.
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