They found the old Duchess, Mrs. Fairmile, and Dr. Lelius, alone. The Duchess had been the penniless daughter of an Irish clergyman, married en secondes noces for her somewhat queer and stimulating personality, by an epicurean duke, who, after having provided the family with a sufficient store of dull children by an aristocratic mother, thought himself at liberty, in his declining years, to please himself. He had left her the dower-house—small but delicately Jacobean—and she was now nearly as old as the Duke had been when he married her. She was largely made, shapeless, and untidy. Her mannish face and head were tied up in a kind of lace coif; she had long since abandoned all thought of a waist; and her strong chin rested on an ample bosom.
As soon as Mrs. Barnes was seated near her hostess, Lelius—who had an intimate acquaintance, through their pictures, with half the great people of Europe—began to observe the Duchess's impressions. Amused curiosity, first. Evidently Daphne represented to her one of the queer, crude types that modern society is always throwing up on the shores of life—like strange beasts from deep-sea soundings.
An American heiress, half Spanish—South-American Spanish—with no doubt a dash of Indian; no manners, as Europe understands them; unlimited money, and absurd pretensions—so Chloe said—in the matter of art; a mixture of the pedant and the parvenue; where on earth had young Barnes picked her up! It was in some such way, no doubt—so Lelius guessed—that the Duchess's thoughts were running.
Meanwhile Mrs. Barnes was treated with all possible civility. The Duchess inquired into the plans for rebuilding Heston; talked of her own recollections of the place, and its owners; hoped that Mrs. Barnes was pleased with the neighbourhood; and finally asked the stock question, "And how do you like England?"
Daphne looked at her coolly. "Moderately!" she said, with a smile, the colour rising in her cheek as she became aware, without looking at them, that Roger and Mrs. Fairmile had adjourned to the farther end of the large room, leaving her to the Duchess and Lelius.
The small eyes above the Duchess's prominent nose sparkled. "Only moderately?" The speaker's tone expressed that she had been for once taken by surprise. "I'm extremely sorry we don't please you, Mrs. Barnes."
"You see, my expectations were so high."
"Is it the country, or the climate, or the people, that won't do?" inquired the Duchess, amused.
"I suppose it would be civil to say the climate," replied Daphne, laughing.
Whereupon the Duchess saw that her visitor had made up her mind not to be overawed. The great lady summoned Dr. Lelius to her aid, and she, the German, and Daphne, kept up a sparring conversation, in which Mrs. Barnes, driven on by a secret wrath, showed herself rather noisier than Englishwomen generally are. She was a little impertinent, the Duchess thought, decidedly aggressive, and not witty enough to carry it off.