Mlle. de Grojean at Ethel’s side laughed heartily.
“How droll you are!”
Helia smiled in spite of herself.
“The papers keep me in good humor,” Ethel answered. “I venture there’s something in them again about Richard the Lion-hearted,” she continued, pointing to a paper on the chair. “All sorts of bargains are offered to me ever since that story—usually old mummies. No; there is nothing about Richard to-day,” Ethel remarked, as she ran through the head-lines. But she received her “pin-prick” all the same. In an open letter some one attacked American society and the lack of solidity in its family ties—signed, “H. Ochsenmaulsalatsfabrikant.” This annoyed Miss Rowrer more than personal attack. She was amazed that people could have such thoughts about her country.
“In your country,” was the conclusion of the Salatsfabrikant, “the young men run after money and the young women after titles.”
“Personally I had the idea that titles were running after me,” thought Ethel, who had had reasons for believing so during the three months in which the duke had been paying her court.
She had already forgotten the open letter, but she kept on thinking of the subject it had started up in her mind.
Ah, certainly not! Titles were not to be her aim in life. Most of all, since her visit to the empress, she had promised herself to give worldly grandeurs only the esteem they deserve. A title! A title no more takes from a man’s qualities than it adds to them. The main thing for a man is, not to be a duke or prince; it is, first and foremost—to be a man!
Mlle. Yvonne was also painting a Madonna’s head from Helia. She wished to make a medallion of it as a present for her mother. Helia took pleasure in posing for these girls who were so kind to her.
Ethel, after seeing Helia at Phil’s the day after the Quat’z-Arts Ball, had met her several times, and felt a very sincere sympathy for her. She seemed to her to be “the right sort of girl.”