Page:An American Girl in India.djvu/57

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A DUCHESS AND A POMPOUS MAN
47

happens to be the son of a Duke, so I'm in the running myself.

I felt a perfect wreck when I got off that boat at Calais. It had been one of the worst crossings they had known for years. But I had not quite lost all sense of shame, as most of the passengers had. I did do my best by smiling and rubbing my face surreptitiously to get rid of my greenish hue, and I did put my hat straight and push in a few stray hairpins with Ermyntrude's help—an Ermyntrude a little pale, but grim and determined as ever—I flattered myself that I soon looked all right again. Marjory looked like a dissipated doll that had been roughly played with, and she sat helplessly on a seat without trying to make herself look decent. I wondered if she would have bucked up if Tommy Lovelace had been around. Lady Manifold and Ermyntrude were wrestling with the baggage question, and the latter, laden with parcels, was indignantly rejecting the proposals of a French porter. Ermyntrude scorns to speak anything but English, so on the Continent she has to rely chiefly on the determined glitter in her eye.

We were in the train at last. I found I had to share a double berth compartment with a woman I had never seen before. We looked at each other furtively with that mutual distrust and suspicion with which English people always do regard one another until they have been properly introduced. Now, of course, I know that, being an American, I ought to have been friendly with that stranger