handle the story with the utmost good taste. Good afternoon."

He bowed. And the next moment the place where he had stood was vacant.

"Of--of all the effrontery!" exploded Mrs. De Peyster.

"Isn't it terrible!" shudderingly gasped the sympathetic Olivetta. "I
hope they won't really drag in that horrible Duke de Crécy!"

Mrs. De Peyster shuddered, too. The episode of the Duke de Crécy was
still salt in an unhealed social wound. The Duke had been New York's
most distinguished titled visitor the previous winter; Mrs. De
Peyster, to the general envy, had led in his entertainment; there
had been whispers of another international marriage. And then, after
respectful adieus, the Duke had sailed away--and within a month
the papers were giving columns to his scandalous escapades with a
sensational Spanish dancer of parsimonious drapery. Whereupon the
rumors of Mrs. De Peyster's previously gossiped-of marriage with the
now notorious Duke were revived--by the subtle instigation, and as an
act of social warfare, so Mrs. De Peyster believed, of her aspiring
rival, Mrs. Allistair. And there was one faint rumor, still daringly
breathed around, that the Duke had proposed--had been accepted--had
run away: in blunt terms, had jilted Mrs. De Peyster.

"We will not speak of this again, Olivetta," Mrs. De Peyster remarked
with returning dignity, "but while the matter is up, I will mention
that the Duke did propose to me, and that I refused him."

With a gesture she silenced any comment from Olivetta. In a breath or
two she was entirely her usual poiseful self. Too many generations