"That is not enough. I have calculated the chances, and mustered all our available force. We shall have no support among the 'better class,' since we are disgraced with the 'millionnaires.'"
At this moment Denslow came in.
"Ah! Dalton,—like you! I have been looking for you to show the pictures.
Devil a thing I know about them. The Duke wondered at your absence."
"Where is Honoria?"
"Ill, ill,—fainted. The house is new; smell of new wood and mortar; deused disagreeable in Honoria. If it had not been for the Duke, she would have fallen. That's a monstrous clever fellow, that Rosecouleur. Admires Honoria vastly. Come,—the pictures."
"Mr. John Vanbrugen Denslow, you are an ass!"
The large, smooth, florid millionnaire, dreaming only of senatorial honors, the shouts of the multitude, and the adoration of a party press, cowered like a dog under the lash of the "man of society."
"Rather rough,—ha, De Vere? What have I done? Am I an ass because I know nothing of pictures? Come, Dalton, you are harsh with your old friend."
"Denslow, I have told you a thousand times never to concede position."
"Yes, but this is a duke, man,—a prince!"