"Oh, yes, America is a lovely country—close to New York you know, beautiful sunsets every night at 10. I mean fireworks in Madison Square Gardens. Yes, I knew President Lincoln intimately. How do you do, Miss Terrill? this is very pluc—kind of you."
Mrs. Terrill has been treated with scant courtesy in these pages, but the part she played in this story is analogous to the part she played in life. She was one of those women who live in the everlasting background—none the worse for that, but no better. The Duke had looked forward to the meeting with a vague dread. When he saw her he experienced a great relief, when she spoke he was grateful. He found an opportunity to speak with her alone.
"My daughter has told me," she said simply. "I'm afraid I ought to be more prejudiced against you than I am, and I'm sure you were not looking forward with any eagerness to meet me."
His smiling denial she waved aside. She was a pretty woman of fifty. She looked no less, yet she was pretty. For beauty is not of any age, any more than it is of any colour. The Duke with his quick sympathies saw behind the laughter in her eyes the shadow of suffering. He had lived too near to sorrow to mistake its evidence. Secretly, he wondered why this woman with her ready wit and her unquestionable charm had played no greater part in life—for unerringly and instinctively he had estimated her place in the world.
She had an embarrassing way of reading one's thoughts.
"You are wondering why I am the Shadowy Lady," she asked with a glint of amusement in her eyes, "yet you must remember a time—did I not overhear you claiming acquaintance with Lincoln?—when it was woman's prerogative to retire: when her virtues were concomitant with her obscurity. Some women rebelled and reached fame by way of the law courts, some women rebelled and died, some acquiesced, waiting for the fashion to change. I was one of those, and when the fashion changed I was satisfied with the old order and remained behind the curtain, peaceably."
He looked at her and nodded.
"I understand," he said, for there was sufficient of the woman in his heart to understand sacrifice. She walked away and sent him Alicia.
They were exchanging banalities for the benefit of the surrounding audience when Hank came looking preternaturally solemn. "That custard, Duke."
His friend stared.