“Wonder how he guessed I was from the States?” Aloud, Harrigan said: “You don’t look as though you’d grow any older in the next ten years.”
“That depends.” The bearded man sighed and lighted a fresh cigarette. “There’s a beautiful young woman,” with an indicative gesture toward the ballroom.
Harrigan expanded. It was Nora, dancing with the Barone.
“She’s the most beautiful young woman in the world,” enthusiastically.
“Ah, you know her?” interestedly.
“I am her father!”—as Louis XIV might have said, “I am the State.”
The bearded man smiled. “Sir, I congratulate you both.”
Courtlandt loomed in the doorway. “Comfortable?”
“Perfectly. Good cigar, comfortable chair, fine view.”
The duke eyed Courtlandt through the pall of smoke which he had purposefully blown forth. He questioned, rather amusedly, what would have happened had he gone down to the main hall that night in Paris? Among the few things he admired was a well-built handsome man. Courtlandt on his part pretended that he did not see.