Page:The Duke Decides (1904).djvu/77

 General noted the disappointment in the tired eyes.

“His Grace knows something. Let’s see—he was on his beam-ends when he was unearthed in New York,” the old hunter of Thugs and Dacoits muttered under his gray mustache.

Beaumanoir made no long stay after his ineffectual effort to sound a warning note. There had been no opportunity for individual talk; but in saying his adieus he had two words with Sybil, who had been observing her cousin quite as intently as, and a good deal more openly than, the General.

“I’m going to look Alec up now, at his diggings in John Street,” he said. “Probably I shall ask him to put me up to-night.”

“It’s a shame that you should have to do so,” Sybil blurted in her boyish fashion. “You’ve been awfully good to us. I ought to have cleared out of Beaumanoir House at once, and I’ll ‘git’ as soon as ever I can make other arrangements.”

“I beg you’ll do nothing of the kind,” Beaumanoir made genial answer. “Alec is about the only friend I have, and—and I need a friend, Cousin Sybil. It has been a pleasure