Who has exquisite taste in all matters of decoration,
was to go down to the ducal residence to inspect the work, and she
obtained permission from Lady Veratrum (the confidential companion
of the duchess) to bring me with her. I started on this journey to
the country with all possible delight, little surmising the agonies
that lay in store for me in the mercifully hidden future.
The tapestries were perfect, and Lady Veratrum was most amiable and
affable, though the blue blood of the Belladonnas courses in her
veins, and her great-grandfather was the celebrated Earl of Rhus
Tox, who rendered such notable service to his sovereign. We roamed
through the splendid apartments, inspected the superb picture-
gallery, where scores of dead-and-gone Cimicifugases (most of them
very plain) were glorified by the art of Van Dyck, Sir Joshua, or
Gainsborough, and admired the priceless collections of marbles and
cameos and bronzes. It was about four o'clock when we were
conducted to a magnificent apartment for a brief rest, as we were to
return to London at half-past six. As Lady Veratrum left us, she
remarked casually, 'His Grace will join us at tea.'
The door closed, and at the same moment I fell upon the brocaded
satin state bed and tore off my hat and gloves like one distraught.
"Hilda," I gasped, "you brought me here, and you must rescue me, for
I absolutely decline to drink tea with a duke."
"Nonsense, Penelope, don't be absurd," she replied. "I have never
happened to see him myself, and I am a trifle nervous, but it cannot
be very terrible, I should think."
"Not to you, perhaps, but to me impossible," I said. "I thought he
was in Homburg, or I would never have entered this place. It is not
that I fear nobility. I could meet Her Majesty the Queen at the
Court of St. James without the slightest flutter of embarrassment,
because I know I could trust her not to presume on my
defencelessness to enter into conversation with me. But this duke,
whose dukedom very likely dates back to the hour of the Norman
Conquest, is a very different person, and is to be met under very
different circumstances. He may ask me my politics. Of course I
can tell him that I am a Mugwump, but what if he asks me why I am a
Mugwump?"
"He will not," Hilda answered. "Englishmen are not wholly devoid of
feeling!"
"And how shall I address him?" I went on. "Does one call him 'your
Grace,' or 'your Royal Highness'? Oh for a thousandth-part of the
unblushing impertinence of that countrywoman of mine who called your
future king 'Tummy'! but she was a beauty, and I am not pretty
enough to be anything but discreetly well-mannered.
