The Duchess looked vague. “A reigning house?” she repeated, politely uncomprehending.
“The Bertrandoni-Altronde,” Lucilla disjointedly explained.
“Oh,” said the Duchess, with a little toss of the head. “The Bertrandoni do not count. They have not reigned for three generations, and they will never reign again. They have no more chance of reigning than they have of growing wings. The Altrondesi would not have them if they came bringing paradise in their hands. My husband's pretensions are absurd, puerile. He keeps them up merely that he may a little flatter himself that he is not too flagrantly the inferior of his wife. No, the Bertrandoni do not count. It is the Wohenhoffens who count. The Wohenhoffens were great lords and feudal chiefs in Styria centuries before the first Bertrandoni won his coat of arms. It was already a vast waiving of rank, it was just not a mésalliance, when a Wohenhoffen gave his daughter to a Bertrandoni in marriage. If my son were a Wohenhoffen in the male line, then indeed he could not possibly marry a commoner. But he is, after all, only a Bertrandoni. Even so, he could not marry a commoner of any of the Continental states—he could not marry outside the Almanach de Gotha. But in England, as you say, it is different. There all are commoners except the House of Peers, and a title is not necessary to good noblesse. In any case, it would be for the Wohenhoffens, not for the Bertrandoni, to raise objections.”
“I see,” said Lucilla.
The Duchess, by a gesture, proposed a return to the house.
“Thank you so much,” she said, “for receiving me so kindly, and for answering all my tiresome questions. You have set my mind quite at ease. Your garden is perfect—even more beautiful than my son had led me to expect. And the view of Florence! You have children of your own? Ah, daughters. No, boys? Ah, but you are young. The proper thing for him to do, of course, as she is without parents, would be to address himself to your good brother?”
“As it is not my brother whom he wishes to marry,” said Lucilla, “I should think the proper thing might be for him to address the young lady herself.”
The Duchess laughed. “Ah, you English are so unconventional,” she said.
But after the Duchess had left them, and Lucilla had reported her cross-examination, “You see,” said Ponty, with an odd effect of discontent in the circumstance, “it is as I told you—the deal is practically done. Now that mamma has taken up your character, and found it satisfactory, it only remains for—for Mr. Speaker to put the question. Well,” his voice sounded curiously joyless, “I wish you joy.”
“Thank you,” said Ruth, who did not look especially joyful.