“You are to know, duke, that from the time you entered upon my domain at North End, you became my guest—­mine, sir!  John, that Johannisberg.  Fill the duke’s glass.  My own importation, sir; twelve years in my cellar.  You will scarcely find its equal anywhere.  Your health, sir.”

The duke bowed and sipped his wine.

His future bearing to this old barbarian required mature reflection.  Only for the duke’s infatuation with Cora, it would have not have needed a minute’s thought to make up his mind to flee from Rockhold forthwith.

When luncheon was over Mr. Rockharrt invited the duke into his study to smoke.  Before they had finished their first cigar the Iron King, withdrawing his “lotus,” and sending a curling cloud of vapor into the air, said: 

“You have something on your mind that you wish to get off it, sir.  Out with it!  Nothing like frankness and promptness.”

“You are right, Mr. Rockharrt.  I do wish to speak to you on a point on which my life’s happiness hangs.  Your beautiful granddaughter—­”

“Yes, yes!  Of course I knew it concerned her.”

“Then I hope you do not disapprove my suit.”

“I don’t now, or I never should have invited you to come over to this country and speak for yourself.  The circumstances are different.  When I refused my granddaughter’s hand to you in London, it was because I had already promised it to another man—­a fine fellow, worthy to become one of my family, if ever a man was—­and I never break a promise.  So I refused your offer, and brought the young woman home, and married her to Rothsay, who disappeared in a strange and mysterious manner, as you may have heard, and was never heard of again until the massacre of Terrepeur by the Comanche Indians—­among whom, it seems, he was a missionary—­when the news came that he had been murdered by the savages and his body burned in the fire of his own hut.  But the horror is two years old now, and I am at liberty to bestow the hand of my widowed granddaughter on whomsoever I please.  You’ll do as well as another man, and Heaven knows that I shall be glad to have any honest white man take her off my hands, for she is giving me a deal of trouble.”

“Trouble, sir?  I thought your lovely granddaughter was the comfort and staff of your age, and, therefore, almost feared to ask her hand in marriage.  But what is the nature of the trouble, if I may ask?”

“Didn’t I tell you?  Well, she has got a missionary maggot in her head.  It’s feeding on all the little brains she ever had.  She wants to go out as a teacher and preacher to the red heathen, and spend her life and her fortune among them.  She wants to do as Rule did, and, I suppose, die as Rule died.  Oh, of course—­

    “Twas so for me young Edwin did,
     And so for him will I!’

“And all that rot.  I cannot break her will without breaking her neck.  If you can do anything with her, take her, in the Lord’s name.  And joy go with her.”