Part 17 (1/2)

”After all,” Lady Carey sighed, throwing down a racing calendar and lighting a cigarette, ”London is the only thoroughly civilized Anglo-Saxon capital in the world. Please don't look at me like that, d.u.c.h.ess. I know--this is your holy of holies, but the Duke smokes here--I've seen him. My cigarettes are very tiny and very harmless.”

The d.u.c.h.ess, who wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and was a person of weight in the councils of the Primrose League, went calmly on with her knitting.

”My dear Muriel,” she said, ”if my approval or disapproval was of the slightest moment to you, it is not your smoking of which I should first complain. I know, however, that you consider yourself a privileged person. Pray do exactly as you like, but don't drop the ashes upon the carpet.”

Lady Carey laughed softly.

”I suppose I am rather a thorn in your side as a relative,” she remarked. ”You must put it down to the roving blood of my ancestors. I could no more live the life of you other women than I could fly. I must have excitement, movement, all the time.”

A tall, heavily built man, who had been reading some letters at the other end of the room, came sauntering up to them.

”Well,” he said, ”you a.s.suredly live up to your principles, for you travel all over the world as though it were one vast playground.”

”And sometimes,” she remarked, ”my journeys are not exactly successful.

I know that that is what you are dying to say.”

”On the contrary,” he said, ”I do not blame you at all for this last affair. You brought Lucille here, which was excellent. Your failure as regards Mr. Sabin is scarcely to be fastened upon you. It is Horser whom we hold responsible for that.”

She laughed.

”Poor Horser! It was rather rough to pit a creature like that against Souspennier.”

The man shrugged his shoulders.

”Horser,” he said, ”may not be brilliant, but he had a great organisation at his back. Souspennier was without friends or influence.

The contest should scarcely have been so one-sided. To tell you the truth, my dear Muriel, I am more surprised that you yourself should have found the task beyond you.”

Lady Carey's face darkened.

”It was too soon after the loss of Lucille,” she said, ”and besides, there was his vanity to be reckoned with. It was like a challenge to him, and he had taken up the glove before I returned to New York.”

The d.u.c.h.ess looked up from her work.

”Have you had any conversation with my husband, Prince?” she asked.

The Prince of Saxe Leinitzer twirled his heavy moustache and sank into a chair between the two women.

”I have had a long talk with him,” he announced. ”And the result?” the d.u.c.h.ess asked.

”The result I fear you would scarcely consider satisfactory,” the Prince declared. ”The moment that I hinted at the existence of--er--conditions of which you, d.u.c.h.ess, are aware, he showed alarm, and I had all that I could do to rea.s.sure him. I find it everywhere amongst your aristocracy--this stubborn confidence in the existence of the reigning order of things, this absolute detestation of anything approaching intrigue.”

”My dear man, I hope you don't include me,” Lady Carey exclaimed.

”You, Lady Muriel,” he answered, with a slow smile, ”are an exception to all rules. No, you are a rule by yourself.”

”To revert to the subject then for a moment,” the d.u.c.h.ess said stiffly.

”You have made no progress with the Duke?”

”None whatever,” Saxe Leinitzer admitted. ”He was sufficiently emphatic to inspire me with every caution. Even now I have doubts as to whether I have altogether rea.s.sured him. I really believe, dear d.u.c.h.ess, that we should be better off if you could persuade him to go and live upon his estates.”

The d.u.c.h.ess smiled grimly.