Pearl Veal turned her head slowly and gazed at her sister, then glanced at me out of the corner of one of those glorious eyes of hers. Her mouth twitched and from those pouted lips a thin spire of smoke arose heavenward. The cigarette was poised in midair; she flicked the ashes from it with that fine little finger of hers and was about to take another puff when, by a sudden impulse, she tossed it away and, arising, came to my chair and seated herself on the arm in an attitude so half-caressing, so unusual for her, that Sally Radigan put down her cup and stared at her in amazement. For myself, I was astounded, but I yielded not an inch. And they say in our set that Pearl Veal is cold; that she is vapid, and has neither heart nor brains; that she is beautiful in her way, but knows it and poses; that she smiles on the men and then mulcts them at bridge; that I am marrying her for money, and why she is marrying me is a mystery! It is a mystery—this last—and to none more than to me. I find it hard to convince myself that it is not all a dream, and when she sat on the arm of my chair, when I felt her hand on my shoulder, and saw her stick out her little foot beside mine, inspecting them as though to see which was the larger—when all this happened at once, this perfect avalanche of good things, I gasped and stared up at her, as astounded as Sally Radigan.
"The Duke was decomposed—greatly decomposed," said Mrs. Radigan, when she had regained her own composure.
"He is always that way," said Pearl, "and yet you wanted me to marry him."
I saw it then. We were facing the masterful Mrs. Radigan together, defying her.
"I told you a hundred times," said she, waving the tea aside and settling herself back in her chair to tell it all again, "that I simply thought it would be best for you, because——"
"Because I would be happier," said Pearl laughing.
"No," said Mrs. Radigan. "But it is much more interesting to be an unhappy duchess than a happy common person. Think of the children alone. It must be lovely to have your picture taken holding Lord Algernon Percy Montmorency Fitznit and all that in one hand, and Lady Angeline Mary Maria Fitznit in the other—sounds much better than when Mrs. John Jones is seen with just Jim and Kate. A duke is a duke, Pearl, and even if he is a jibbering idiot, he takes precedence over a mere genius all over the world, even in our common democratic America. Now, if you had married Lord Nocastle——"
Poor Pearl! She had already talked a great deal for her and was not disposed to argue with her worldly wise sister, which nettled Mrs. Radigan, who likes to be contradicted if it will give her the opportunity to drive home another point. As she went on and met only a smiling acquiescence to everything she said, or now and then a monosyllabic remark, or a puff of smoke, she became disconcerted and at last angry, as angry as she can become, for at heart she is a good soul.