I'd take my affydavy that there's no better friend in the world than your grace." She smiled at him.

"And so we are friends, aren't we?
And I am to tell her ladyship, and you are to say 'naught.' "But to the Egyptian, to him, your grace, it is my place to speak--to Claridge Pasha, when he comes." The Duchess looked at him quizzically.
"How does Lord Eglington's death concern Claridge Pasha ?" she asked rather anxiously.

Had there been gossip about Hylda?
Had the public got a hint of the true story of her flight, in spite of all Windlehurst had done?
Was Hylda's name smirched, now, when all would be set right?
Had everything come too late, as it were?
"There's two ways that his lordship's death concerns Claridge Pasha," answered Soolsby shrewdly, for though he guessed the truth concerning Hylda and David, his was not a leaking tongue.

"There's two ways it touches him.

There'll be a new man in the Foreign Office--Lord Eglington was always against Claridge Pasha; and there's matters of land betwixt the two estates--matters of land that's got to be settled now," he continued, with determined and successful evasion.
The Duchess was deceived.