She sighed.
"To think," remarked the duchess, busy over a great bowl of flowers, "that to-morrow night this time little Cynthia will be Lady Harrowby. I suppose you'll go to Rakedale Hall for part of the year at least?"
"I suppose so."
"I, too, have had my Rakedale Hall. Formal, Cynthia dear, formal. Nothing but silly little hunts, silly little shoots—American men would die there. As for American women—nothing ever happens—the hedges bloom in neat little rows—the trees blossom—they're bare again—Cynthia, sometimes I've been in a state where I'd give ten years of my life just to hear the rattle of an elevated train!"
She stood looking down at the girl, an all too evident pity in her eyes.
"It isn't all it might be, I fancy—marrying into the peerage," Cynthia said.
"My dear," replied the duchess, "I've nearly died at times. I never was exactly what you'd call a patriot, but—often I've waked in the night and thought of Detroit. My little car rattling over the cobblestones—a new gown tried on at Madame Harbier's—a matinée—and chocolate afterward at that little place—you remember it. And our house on Woodward Avenue—the good times there. On the veranda in the evening, and Jack Little just back from college in the east running across the lawns to see me——. What became of Jack, dear?"
"He married Elise Perkins."
"Ah—I know—and they live near our old house—have a box when the opera comes—entertain the Yale glee club every Christmas—oh, Cynthia, maybe it's crude, maybe it's middle-class in English eyes—but it's home! When you introduced that brother of Lord Harrowby's this afternoon—that big splendid chap who said America looked better than a title to him—I could have thrown my arms about his neck and kissed him!" She came closer to the girl, and stood looking down at her with infinite tenderness in her washed-out eyes. "Wasn't there—any American boy, my dear?" she asked.
"I—I—hundreds of them," answered Cynthia Meyrick, trying to laugh.