Alice Duer Miller

“ He stopped short on a little landing two or three steps below the corridor itself and spoke the words recorded above, and the next instant a door was flung open and a young angel seemed to stand before him, the bright light from the bedroom streaming out and fringing her figure with light.
“Dormier,” she said in a low vibrant voice, “I want you to know that there is one person in this house who understands your insolence.”
The duke was very much astonished. ”

“ Jacqueline understood this process perfectly, but she did not immediately begin it. She had come to the conclusion that someone really must tell the duke a few home truths. She remembered Mr. Winters' advice not to be ashamed of anyone's conduct but your own. She was ashamed of her own; she had acquiesced in this situation, since she had not spoken out. Some time tomorrow or the day after she must meet Dormier and have a moment to express her opinion of his conduct. Only she never could say the right thing on the spur of the moment; she must think it out first. ”

“ I am absolutely loyal to the duke.”
A dark head was bowed over her hand. Was that a tear? Oh, surely not! A strong man——
There was a sound at the door, and Jacqueline, hastily removing from her speaking countenance the look of mournful dignity suitable to a duchess parting from an old love, pretended she was fastening a bracelet as Miss Salisbury entered.
“How sweet you look!” said Miss Salisbury. “So youthful, so girlish.”
This was the last way Jacqueline wanted to look. She thought to herself, “Wouldn't it be the breath of life to Salisbury to have been a governess to a duchess? ”

“ McMannis.”
Jacqueline protested, “How can anyone be great who is taken up with such a contemptible thing as—as social ambition?” She felt ashamed even of mentioning it.
“Is it contemptible?” he asked, to her great astonishment. “I suppose so, and yet it is almost universal. It's like jealousy—everyone condemns it and everyone feels it. The people who entirely lack jealousy don't know what love is, and the people who are entirely without social ambition entirely lack the social art. If you know social values you must have social ambition in some form or another ”

“ The next instant they were sitting side by side on the narrow stairs and Jacqueline was crying very comfortably on the lapel of the duke's serge coat. It may seem strange that a girl, not by any means averse to weeping, should have reached the age of seventeen and ten months without ever having experienced the immense comfort of weeping on a convenient shoulder. ”

“ No one, except perhaps criminals in relation to the law, has so urgent and frequent necessity to deceive as young people in relation to interfering elders. Jacqueline had learned ways of keeping her own counsel before she was ten. The most finished diplomat could not have put a colleague off the track more completely than she did Miss Salisbury.
The pantry door opened, and the voice of Heccles could be heard demanding porridge for His Grace, and shut again in the midst of his general condemnation of “your American breakfast foods.” ”

“ The need of it absorbed her attention, and again she turned to her door, but this time Dormier took her hand.
“Please don't go,” he said.
“I must get a handkerchief,” said Jacqueline. The duke produced one, unfolded, from his breast pocket.
It is difficult to be haughty and aloof with a person whose handkerchief you have been obliged to borrow—especially when you are seized with an almost insane curiosity to know whether it has a coronet on it. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes and glanced at the corner where the monogram was. It didn't have a coronet. ”

“ At home it isn't so bad, because one knows what one's expected to do. But over here, where one hasn't naturally any particular job—and one feels the empire is being judged by one's own wretched performance—it's rather frightful. But of course,” he went on more briskly, “when I found Mrs. Mac was having a party I'd have come to it if I hadn't promised to dine with a poor chap who may be having his arm off tomorrow morning—the bravest man I ever knew and having a fairly murky time of it.” ”

“ He knew half a dozen terrible stories of American girls married by designing foreigners for their money. Jacqueline suggested that it was unkind to assume it would be only for her money, but Paul was not in a jesting mood. He explained to her that only American men were capable of appreciating American girls.
He had not, when they were interrupted, asked her to marry him, and she was left a little disappointed, a little relieved, and entirely convinced of his affection. She had a few more words with Mr. Winters, and then everyone was gone and she and her father re stepmother were left alone. ”

“ She'd tell her next victims how gracious I had always been—the dear, de-ah duchess.” The idea made Jacqueline giggle as she ran downstairs. For all she knew Dormier might be married—very probably was engaged to some long-nosed Lady Wilhelmina Sophia Dorothea Something-or-Other. Well, between here and the drawing-room door she could do a scene on that too: “Were I a free man and able to choose where my heart leads me——”
“In this country, your grace, we have little time or respect for men who are not free to follow their hearts' choice.” ”

“ The duke was not in the corridor, but was walking upstairs to his room on the fourth floor. There was an elevator in the McMannis house, but the duke never remembered it. Heccles would not use it because—unlike the duke—he disapproved of lifts. Pitts-Cave was the only member of the party whose physical laziness overcame his natural distaste for innovations. So the duke was walking up, with his hands in his pockets, and every now and then taking two steps at a time in a long easy stride. ”

“ So with McMannis. He bore out Mr. Winters' theory that those who lacked social ambition lacked social instincts. To McMannis it seemed that the party had been a great success. The food and drink had been excellent, and though he had found the lady on his right—the pale languid lady—difficult to talk to—heavy, he called it—the lady on his left had been charming.
“She wants a job for her brother,” said his wife, yawning.
“It all went off well,” said McMannis, using his genial manner; “great success in spite of Dormier's absence—very pleasant—don't you think so?” ”

“ The duke craned his neck to see that Heccles was not behind the screen. Heccles had been told a number of times that his presence wasn't necessary in the dining room at meals, as the McMannis servants were capable of serving the McMannis guests, but Heccles had never allowed himself to be influenced by any consideration except his own inherent knowledge of how things ought to be done. “Heccles bowled for Crumbelly in his youth. He'd have me shot at daybreak for saying it wasn't the best game in the world. I had rather hoped, Mrs. Mac, that you'd go with me.” ”

“ Conversation is a partnership, not a relation of master and slave, as most people try to make it.” ”

“ He laid down those general principles which sometimes seem to be the bane of American conversation—he said that hospitality had its obligations; that American women were accustomed to having what they wanted.
“Oh, quite—quite,” Pitts-Cave said at this point, feeling someone must say something and seeing that Dormier intended never to speak again.
The host said that Dormier's absence from a dinner party designed to do him honor was unthinkable—simply unthinkable. ”

“ Several surprising things had happened to him since he had been in this country—a taxi driver had refused a tip, a policeman had taken him by the arm and said “Say, bub, you want to watch your step,” and in a pleasant chat he was having with a fruit peddler from whom he had bought a beauteous but flavorless apple he had heard himself described as a foreigner. ”

“ I have seen many women, but never any who so completely——” The Duchess of Dormier—Duchess Jacqueline—“Your Grace has of late neglected the most humble of her adorers.” Jacqueline curtsied to her image in the glass. ”

“ McMannis, even Heccles. What would any one of them think if, emerging from their rooms, they should see her and Dormier? She sprang to her feet and, stuffing a warm soft damp ball of cambric into the duke's hand, said “Here's your handkerchief” and went into her own room and shut the door. Then she immediately wished that she hadn't. After a few moments she heard Dormier's feet going on up to his own room on the floor above. She thought that there was nothing in the world so much to be regretted as ill-considered prudence. If only she hadn't been so quick—she might still be there with him ”