"Are the boarders out?" she said again; "I could not encounter them. I considered the whole question, and thought that at this hour they would, in all probability, be shopping or diverting themselves in some way. Ah, Westenra, let me look at you."
"But do you really want to look at me, Duchess?" I asked somewhat audaciously.
"I see you have lost none of your spirit," said the Duchess, and she patted me playfully with a large fan which she wore at her side. "There, sit down in that little chair opposite, and tell me all about everything. How is this—this curious concern going?"
"You can see for yourself," I answered; "this room is not exactly an attic, is it?"
"No, it is a very nice reception-room," said the Duchess, glancing approvingly around her. "It has, my dear Mary—forgive me for the remark—a little of the Mayfair look; a large room, too, nearly as large as our rooms in Grosvenor Place."
"Not quite as large," I replied, "and it is not like your rooms, Duchess, but it does very well for us, and it is certainly better and more stimulating than a cottage in the country."
"Ah, Westenra, you are as terribly independent as ever," said the Duchess. "What the girls of the present day are coming to!" She sighed as she spoke.
"But you are a very pretty girl all the same," she continued, giving me an approving nod. "Yes, yes, and this phase will pass, of course it will pass."
"Why have you come to see us to-day, Victoria?" asked my mother.
"My dear friend," replied the Duchess, dropping her voice, "I have come to-day because I am devoured with curiosity. I mean to drop in occasionally. Just at present, and while the whole incident is fresh in the minds of our friends, you would scarcely like me to ask you to my receptions, but by-and-by I doubt not it can be managed. The fact is, I admire you both, and very often think of you. The Duke also is greatly tickled at the whole concern; I never saw him laugh so heartily about anything. He says that, as to Westenra, she is downright refreshing; he never heard of a girl of her stamp doing this sort of thing before. He thinks that she will make a sort of meeting-place, a sort of bond between the West and the—the—no, not the East, but this sort of neutral ground where the middle-class people live."