But she said: “No, no! They are playing an old-fashioned fox-trot. Besides, one can always dance; there are so many men with whom one can only dance, for what have they to talk about? Duke, I did love your legend of the christening of Paris! Did you make it up?”
Now these words had chanced to cast a gloom about the young Duke, and he had said: “But there is another legend, a more private legend. It tells, sister, of the house of Mall, how the golden cock on the weather-vane of St. James’s tower shall crow thrice at the birth of the greatest of the Dukes of Mall. And, although I say it who shouldn’t, this very miracle attended the birth of him who now stands beside you. And the legend further tells that when the golden cock on St. James’s tower again crows thrice the greatest of the Dukes of Mall shall die. Ava, to-night I find myself in fear of my fate. That which is written shall come to pass, and no man may defy the passage of his destiny—but to-night, Ava, I am troubled with a foreboding that the second crowing of that beastly cock is not far distant from this dear moment.”
Very sweetly she had tried to soothe his foreboding, but it was heavy in him and he had not listened, saying: “I’ve never but once before been vexed with this depression, and that was on the night of the day I fell in love with Leonora Lamb.”
“Let us dance,” she had said shyly, but they had not danced very enjoyably owing to the number of the students of hospitality who were generously supporting Mrs. Omroy Pont on so memorable an occasion.
And thus it was on the first night between Miss Ava Lamb and the young Duke of Mall.
VI
Now the Duke had turned his yacht from Naples merely to amuse himself (that is to say, to annoy his wife); but is it not a fact, as The Morning Post lately asked in reference to our treating with the Soviet Republic, that it is dangerous to play with fire? So it happened that the Duke had not been gay of his new enchantment for long before all others palled on him, and he awoke one morning to recognise that he could not, try as he would, do without the one enchantment that was called Ava Lamb. Those American sisters, first the one and then the other, were fated, it appeared, to ravish his imagination to the exclusion of the whole race of womankind. And he had all the more leisure in which to contemplate his dilemma insomuch as Miss Lamb, pleading the importunity of friends, would sometimes not see him for days at a time.
In the meanwhile the Duchess, in London, was preparing to petition the Courts to release her from her unfortunate marriage; and after the usual correspondence had passed between the lawyers of both parties, and the usual evidence collected, the majesty of the law pronounced the usual decree and everyone said the usual things.
Impatiently the Duke in Paris awaited the wire which would tell him that he was no longer the husband of Leonora Mall; and when it came he delayed only long enough to instruct his valet to telephone his London florists to send the ex-Duchess a basket of flowers before calling on Miss Ava Lamb at her hotel.
However, she was not at home. The Duke protested. Even so, she was not at home. The Duke felt rebuked for not having conformed to the decencies of divorce so far as to wait twenty-four hours; and in all humility he returned the next day.