“It’s Usk—Usk—all the time!” was the impatient answer.
“Not just all the time,” said Félicia sweetly, “but I guess it soon will be.”
“Félicia Steinherz, you make me tired!”
“Now don’t get mad, Maimie. If a duke had come along, I’d have married him, as I’ve stated times and times, but, you see, that duke hasn’t materialised, and Lord Usk is right here.”
“I’d have had you marry an emperor,” said Maimie Logan, through her teeth.
“And I’m real grateful to you, but the emperor didn’t rise to the occasion either, did he? I admired to see his affections just wilt when pappa said he wouldn’t give me a red cent if I married him. I was done with him then, but if he’d had the grace to stick to me, you bet pappa would have weakened at last. It was a pity, for I feel I have it in me to care more for an emperor than any other man, because he’d really have given me something to be grateful for.”
“Well, don’t accept Lord Usk in such a tearing hurry. There are dukes left yet, and princes too.”
“Why, certainly, but you haven’t looked all around this thing, Maimie. You had better make up your mind that pappa isn’t going to give me any more chances of meeting those dukes and princes than he can help.”
“I want to know! Why not?”
“Just listen to me, and ask yourself. Since I was ’most a baby, I’ve known that some way my folks were different from other girls’ fathers and mothers. I guess it was pappa’s high-toned manners, and mamma’s never having more than half a voice in her own house; and you know as well as I do, though we don’t have other people see it, what an icy terror pappa can be yet when he likes. Why, we wouldn’t be here if he could have helped it.” Maimie smiled grimly at this allusion to the circumstances attending their departure for England. Mr Steinherz, summoned suddenly to London on the business of his Euphrates Syndicate, had telegraphed to his daughter that he was leaving New York by the next day’s boat. Félicia, who had for years demanded a visit to Europe in vain, was touched in her tenderest point. Telegrams flashed backwards and forwards, and when Mr Steinherz went on board, the first person he saw was his daughter, holding a farewell reception of her fashionable friends, with Maimie and a maid and a marvellous pile of luggage in the background.