“Ah, that’s not too good,” sighed the Duke. “I knew there was a catch somewhere.”
“However,” said the Duchess, “the beauty that you most admire in any woman is the beauty of her not being a woman you already know: the only charm of which you never are tired is the charm of novelty.”
“One likes a change,” sighed the Duke. “If that’s what you are talking about.”
“It certainly is,” said the Duchess.
“Well, don’t let me hinder you,” said the Duke. He was rude. “I am all attention. But should I interrupt you, sweet, you must forgive me, for I am apt to talk in my sleep.”
“Oh, but haven’t I made quite a collection of names like Dolly and Lucy and Maudie!”
The Duke said one word. It expressed all the volumes that could be written by the men who, alas, cannot write. But the Duchess had now been in England for four years and knew that the facility with which an Englishman can swear at his wife does not detract in the least from his deep respect for Womanhood, else would England be what England undoubtedly is?
She said: “Maximilian, I want to tell you that you are a most extraordinary man. In public, for instance, you are all that is charming; and many who know of our private disagreements can’t but think the fault is mine, since in public you are so very right and seem never for a moment deficient in the manners, graces and consideration proper to a great gentleman.”
The Duke expressed a hope that she would put that down in writing, so that he could send it as a reference to any lady, or ladies, to whom he might be paying his suit, or suits.
“However,” said the Duchess, “when we come to examine you in the home, what a different picture do we find! Your manners are monstrous, your graces those of a spoilt schoolboy, while your consideration for your wife such that, far from concealing from me your preference for the company of low women, you will actually,” said she, “bring them on board this yacht and make love to them under my very——”