Meanwhile, out of the mist, out of that opaque film lying on the sea, a rocket arose, described a great arc, and fell hissing among the tree tops.
CHAPTER XXVI—THE CITY OF DREAMS
But for the fire burning in the grate, nothing had changed in the dining room at Old Newton. The table was laid with a white cloth to the floor; the same massive howl, filled with the white grapes of the North, stood in the center of it. Nothing had changed since the Marchesa lunched there, on her way to Oban, except that the light of the morning rather than the midday entered through the big windows cut in the south wall. And except that another woman sat there, beyond the Duke of Dorset, at the table—a dark-haired, beautiful woman, in a rose-colored morning gown. Some letters lay beside her plate, and she opened one of them, while the butler moved about, putting breakfast on the sideboard. A fragment of newspaper clipping fluttered out on the cloth. She put her finger on it, but, for the moment, did not take it up. She read the note and then looked across the table smiling.
"The Marchesa is frightfully anxious about our home-coming to Dorset. She says that a real dowager may slur over the details of an ancient custom, but that an adopted dowager must have everything to the letter."
Then she took up the fragment of newspaper clipping.
"Oh," she said, "here is something about you," and she read it aloud.
"'The speech of the Duke of Dorset, in the House of Lords, a few days ago, in which he urged a dissolution of the Japanese alliance, and, in its stead, a closer relation of all the English-speaking people, was a significant utterance. It is the direct expression of an opinion that has been slowly gathering strength, both here and in the United States of America. It will be recalled that the Duke was on the Pacific Coast at the time of the recent Japanese rising, and was rescued, with his party, by His Majesty's gunboat Cleavewaive. The gunboat had put the Duke ashore on the coast of Oregon, on its annual cruise south, in the interest of British shipping and to show the flag, and it returned to pick him up when the Captain learned of the opening of hostilities.
"'It is doubtless true, as the Duke said, that the rising was a first move of Japan in its long-threatened conflict with the United States, and was only rendered abortive by the fact that all the white men of the Pacific Coast, both American and Canadian alike, moved as one people against the Japanese; thereby forcing Great Britain to notify Japan that, in the event of the matter taking on the aspect of a national conflict, she would support her colony.