On one of his voyages he was surprised to find at his hotel an invitation to dine at Mrs. Prothero’s. Little as he knew of the eminent ones of the fashionable world, he knew the famous name of Prothero. He had spoken with reverence always of her late husband, one of the rebuilders of the American navy, a voice crying in the wilderness for a revival of the ancient glories of the merchant marine. Davidge had never met him or his widow. He felt that he could not refuse the unexplained opportunity to pay at least his respects to the relict of his idol.
But he wondered by what means Mrs. Prothero, whom everybody had heard of, had heard of him. When he entered her door on the designated evening his riddle was answered.
The butler glanced at his card, then picked from a heap on the console a little envelope which he proffered on his tray. The envelope was about the size of those that new-born parents use to inclose the proclamation of the advent of a new-born infant. The card inside Davidge’s envelope carried the legend, “Miss Webling.”
The butler led him to the drawing-room door and announced him. There indeed was Marie Louise, arm in arm with a majestic granddam in a coronet of white hair.
Marie Louise put out her hand, and Davidge went to it. She clasped his and passed it on to Mrs. Prothero with a character:
“This is the great Mr. Davidge, the shipwright.”
Mrs. Prothero pressed his hand and kept it while she said: 123 “It is like Marie Louise to bring youth to cheer up an old crone like me.”
Davidge muffed the opening horribly. Instead of saying something brilliant about how young Mrs. Prothero looked, he said:
“Youth? I’m a hundred years old.”
“You are!” Mrs. Prothero cried. “Then how old does that make me, in the Lord’s name––a million?”