“Oh! Really? How horrid! I am never ill. I always find the trip rather jolly. I go over to shop, and that would keep me up if nothing else did. Well, I think it was very good indeed of you—awfully good—to brave the horrors of the deep, or rather of your state-room, just to call on me.”
She had a babyish voice and a delightful manner. The Duke smiled. He was really rather glad to see her again. “You were good enough to ask me to call if I ever came over,” he said, “and it occurred to me that it would be a jolly thing to do. I only had little detached chats with you over there, and there were always a lot of Johnnies hanging about. I felt interested to see you in your own surroundings.”
“Oh—perhaps you are going to write a book? I have always felt dreadfully afraid that you were clever. Well, don’t make the mistake of thinking that we have only one type over here, as they always do when they come to write us up. There are just ten girls in my particular set—we have sets within sets, as you do, you know—and we are each one of us quite different from all the others. We are supposed to be the intellectual set, and Alexandra Maitland and Augusta Forbes are really frightfully clever. I don’t know why they tolerate me—probably because I admire them. Augusta is my dearest friend. Alex pats me on the head and says that I am the leaven that keeps them from being a sodden lump of grey matter. I have addled my brains trying to keep up with them.”
“Don’t; you are much more charming as you are.”
“Oh, dear! I don’t know. Men always seem to get tired of me,” she replied, with just how much ingenuousness the Duke could not determine. “Mrs. Burr says it is because I talk a blue streak and say nothing. Hal is quite too frightfully slangy. Augusta kisses me and says I am an inconsequential darling. She made me act in one of Howell’s comedies once, and I did it badly on purpose, in the hope of raising my reputation, but Augusta said it was because I couldn’t act. Fletcher Cuyler, who is the most impertinent man in New York said—— Have you seen Fletcher?”
“He came out on the tug to meet me, and left me at the door.”
“I believe if Fletcher really has a deep down affection for anyone, it is for you—I mean for any man. He is devoted to all of us, and he is the only man we chum with. But we wouldn’t have him at the meeting to-day. Do you know that I should have lent my valuable presence to two important meetings this afternoon?”
“Really?” The Duke was beginning to feel a trifle restless.
“Yes, we are going in frightfully for Socialism, you know—Socialism and the vote—and—oh, dozens of other things. Alex said we must, and so we did. It’s great fun. We make speeches. At least, I don’t, but the others do. Should you like to go to one of our meetings?”
“I should not!” said the Duke emphatically.