THE next day Cuyler took the Duke to call on Mrs. Forbes in her house. It was five o’clock and the lamps were lit. Augusta’s particular set were there, talking Socialism over their tea, and enlightening a half-dozen young men and elderly club roués, who listened with becoming gravity. Mrs. Forbes sat somewhat apart by the tea-table talking to three or four men on any subject but Socialism. She wore a gown of dark-red velvet with a collar of Venetian lace and sat in a large high-backed chair of ebony, inlaid with ivory. The seat was also high, and she looked somewhat like a queen on her throne, graciously receiving the homage of her courtiers. The drawing-room was twice as large as the Creighton’s, the Duke noted as he entered. It was hung with dark-green velvet embroidered with a tree design in wood colour an inch thick. Every shade of green blended in the great apartment, and there was no other colour but the wood relief and the pink of the lamp-shades.
Mrs. Forbes did not rise, but she held out her hand to the stranger with so spontaneous a warmth that he felt as if he were receiving his first welcome in transatlantic parts. She had not shaken hands with him at the opera, and their brief conversation had been over her shoulder; he now found that her eyes and hand, her womanly magnetism and almost regal manner combined to effect the impression: “New York, c’est moi. My hospitality to the elect few who win my favour is sincere and unbounded, the bitter envy of the cold and superfluous stranger without its gates; and, of all men, my dear Duke of Bosworth, you are the most genuinely welcome.”
He wondered a little how she did it, but did not much care. It was a large beautiful gracious presence, and he was content, glad to bask in it. He forgot Augusta and Mabel, and took a low chair before her.
“I won’t ask you how you like New York,” she said, smiling again. She half divined his thoughts, and saw that he was clever despite an entire indifference to his natural abilities; and the sympathy of her nature conveyed what she thought.
“Oh, I do—now,” he replied with unwonted enthusiasm. “I must say that the blind rush everybody seems to be in is a trifle disconcerting at first—it makes an Englishman feel, rather, as if his youngest child—the child of his old age, as it were, was on a dead run, and that he must rush after to see what it was all about or be left behind like an old fogey. Upon my word I feel fully ten years older than I did when I landed.”
She laughed so heartily that he felt a sudden desire to say something really clever, and wondered why he usually took so little trouble.
“That is the very best statement of one of our racial differences I have heard,” she said; “I shall remember to tell it to my husband. He will be delighted. I feel the rush myself at times, for I was born in a far more languid climate. But New York is an electrifying place; it would fascinate you in time.”
“It fascinates me already!” he said gallantly, “and it is certainly reposeful here.”
“It is always the same, particularly at five o’clock,” she replied.
“Does that mean that I can drop in sometimes at this hour?”
“Will you?”
“I am afraid I shall be tempted to come every day.”
“That would be our pleasure,” and again she smiled. It was a smile that had warmed older hearts than the weary young profligate’s. “Augusta is almost invariably here and I usually am. Occasionally I drive down to bring my husband home.”
The Duke understood her perfectly. Her graceful pleasure in meeting him was not to be misconstrued. As she turned to greet a new comer he regarded her closely. If she had not taken the trouble to convey her subtle warning, he should have guessed that she loved her husband. Then he fell to wondering what sort of a man Forbes was to have developed the abundant harvest of such a woman’s nature. “She could easily have been made something very different in the wrong hands,” he thought, “and not in one respect only but in many. What a mess I should have made of a nature like that! Little Miss Creighton, with her meagre and neutral make-up is about all I am equal to. This woman might have lifted me up once; but more likely I should have dragged her down. She is all woman, the kind that is controlled and moulded by the will of a man.”
His eyes rested on her mouth. “She will hurt Forbes some day, give him a pretty nasty time; but it won’t be because she doesn’t love him. And—she’ll make him forget—when she gets ready. A man would forgive a woman like that anything.”
She turned suddenly and met his eyes. “What are you thinking?” she demanded.
“That Mr. Forbes must be a remarkable man,” he answered quickly. He rose. “I must go over and speak to Miss Forbes; but I shall come back.”
Mabel’s eyes were full of coquettish reproach. Augusta chaffed him for forgetting their existence. Her manner was not her mother’s, but it was high-bred, and equally sincere. She presented him to the other girls, and to Mrs. Burr, who lifted her lorgnette, and regarded him with a prolonged and somewhat discomforting stare. But it was difficult to embarrass the Duke of Bosworth. He went over and sat beside Mabel.
“I think I met him once,” said Mrs. Burr to Augusta, “but he is so very unindividual that I cannot possibly remember.”
“I think he is charming,” said Miss Forbes. “I had quite a talk with him last night.”
“He doesn’t look stupid, but he’s not precisely hypnotic.”
“Oh, there’s something about him!” exclaimed one of the other girls. “I feel sure that he’s fascinating.”
“He looks as though he knew so much of the world,” said another, with equal enthusiasm.
“What’s the matter with us?” demanded one of the young men.
“You haven’t a title,” said Mrs. Burr.
“Hal, you are quite too horrid. I have not thought of his title—not once. But Norry, you can’t look like that, no matter how hard you try.”
“Oh yes I can; it’s not so hard as you imagine; only it’s not my chronic effect. When I am—ah—indiscreet enough to produce it, I have the grace to keep out of sight.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“Oh, he is an Englishman—with a title,” said the young man, huffily. “Miss Maitland, have you caught the fever?”
“I have either had all, or have outgrown the children’s diseases, and I class the title-fever among them. I know that some get it late in life, but some people will catch anything. Our old butler has just had the mumps.”
“That’s a jolly way of looking at it.”
“Oh you men are not altogether exempt,” said Mrs. Burr. “But the funniest case is Ellis Davis. He’s just come back from London with a wild Cockney accent, calls himself ‘Daivis,’ and says ‘todai’ and the Princess of ‘Wailes,’ and ‘paiper.’ Probably he also says ‘caike’ and ‘laidy.’ I can’t think where he got it, for he must have had some letters, and you may bet your prospects he presented them.”
“Possibly he saw more of the hotel servants and his barber than he did of the others,” suggested Miss Maitland.
“Or his ear may be defective, or his memory bad, and he got mixed,” replied Mrs. Burr. “We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt; but I can’t think why the most original people on earth want to imitate anyone. And yet they say we hate the English. Great heaven! Why, we even drink the nasty concoction called English breakfast tea, a brand the English villagers would not give tuppence a pound for, simply because it has the magic word tacked on to it.”
“We don’t hate the English,” said Augusta. “What nonsense. The Irish do, and the politicians toady to the Irish and control certain of the newspapers. That is all there is in it; but they make the most noise.”
“And we grovel,” said Mrs. Burr. “It is a pity we can’t strike a happy medium.”
“I think the greater part of the nation is indifferent,” said Miss Maitland, “or at all events recognises the bond of blood and gratitude.”
The Duke was making his peace with Mabel.
“I was afraid I bored you this morning,” he said, “it is good of you not to tell me that you don’t want to talk to me again for a week.”
“You only stayed an hour. Did it seem so long?”
“I never paid a call of twenty minutes before,” he said unblushingly.
“Oh, how sweet of you!”
“Not at all. Can I walk home with you? Is that proper?”
“Oh, there will be a lot of us together; and they will all want to talk to you.”
“My valuable conversation shall be devoted to you alone.” He hesitated a moment. “Shall you be at home this evening?”
She looked down, tucking the end of her glove under her cuff. “Yes, I rarely go out two nights in succession.”
“May I call again?”
“Yes.”
She looked up and met his eyes. “It has to be done,” thought the Englishman, “there’s no getting out of it now, and I may as well take the plunge and get over it. And she certainly is likeable.”
“They are going now,” said Mabel.
He went over to Mrs. Forbes to make his adieux.
“I haven’t given you any tea,” she said. “It was stupid of me to forget it. You must come back to-morrow and have a cup.”
“I shall come—for the tea,” he said.
“And you must dine with us? Some day next week—Thursday?”
“Thanks, awfully; I’ll come on any pretence.”
“You must—Fletcher, take the Duke into the dining-room. It is so cold outside.”
And to this invitation the Duke responded with no less grace, then walked home with Mabel and left her at her door, happy and elated.