Brun's flat stared at them with its hideous red brick and ugly shapelessness. No romance for Dent Street; the glittering expanse of Portland Place was gone.
"You can't be a realist only, if you're to do the Duchess properly," said Brun. "There's more than that wanted."
CHAPTER II
RACHEL
"My dear thing, it all comes back, as everything always does, simply to personal pluck. It's only a question, no matter when or where, of having enough."—Henry James.
I
No. 104 Portland Place was the house where the Duchess of Wrexe had lived now for sixty years. On the left as you go towards the park it had an air that no other house in the Place had ever been able to catch. There were certain buildings, Nos. 31, 26, 42, for instance, that were obviously doing their little best to present a successful imitation, but they were left a long, a very long way behind. The interesting thing would be to know whether No. 104 had had that wonderful "note" sixty years ago, when the Duchess came to it. Probably not; it was, beyond question, her presence that had thus given it its distinction. Its grim facade, without her, would not so strangely have hinted at beauties and wonders and glories within, nor would the windows have gleamed so finely, nor the great hall-door have symbolized such rich dark depths.
Here the temple of the Beaminsters, here, therefore, the shrine of all that is best and finest in English aristocracy. It was indeed the largest house in Portland Place, and most of the houses there were large, but, across that blank austere front more was written than mere size. It was Age at its most scornful, but observant Age, an Age that could compare one period with another, an Age that had not forgotten the things that belonged to its Youth.