CHAPTER III.
All that happened now only shows one how the greatest sense of modesty may end in the biggest advertisement. Penelope, though determined to do her duty, which was mainly to educate mankind, meant doing it unobtrusively, and there was not a man or woman in the British Isles or in the United States who did not hear of her quiet intention. The cables hummed with Penelope's name; it was whispered in the great deeps of the sea; wireless telegraphists caught Lady Penelope Brading out of Hertzian waves; ships ploughed the ocean laden with Penelope and copy about her.
In two twos the notoriety hunters in London sank into insignificance; professional beauties were neglected, and the sale of their photographs fell off. There was an immense demand for Penelope's, which, luckily, no one could satisfy until an enterprising New Yorker flooded the United States with portraits. Before it was found out that this particular photograph was one of a young actress whom he proposed introducing to the public shortly, he sold amazing quantities of them. When there was one in every inquiring household from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, the real sitter for it wrote to the papers and complained bitterly. She is now playing to crowded houses. There are many paths to fame.
Poor Pen was at first horribly shocked. She was young. And yet she was human. She said: "Oh, dear, oh, dear!" and, swearing that she would never read a word about herself, she subscribed to a newspaper cutting agency.
From the New York papers alone one could cull a highly coloured account of her whole history. And they gave Bradstock's history, too, not omitting his two-word exclamatory speech in the House of Lords. Bradstock stood it like a Trojan, like a Spartan. He never turned a hair even when they said that he was going to marry Penelope himself. They gave a full biography of Titania, with a real photograph. When the duchess saw it, she was silent for full five minutes, such was the shock it gave her. Then she talked for five hours, and called on the American ambassador.
"Cannot you do anything for me?" asked Titania, perorating.
"I'm afraid not, your Grace," said the ambassador, wearily. He said it was an awful thing to be an ambassador sometimes, though it had its points.
Being discomfited for once by an ambassador, she turned on Bradstock, and rent him limb from limb. And then she went to Penelope.
"I'm only doing my duty," said Penelope, with her beautiful lips as firm as Grecian marble.
"Your duty!" shrieked the duchess; "and look at the papers!"