Honoria looked inquiringly at Lethal. "Pray, Mr. Lethal, tell me who he is? I thought there was no such person in America," she added, with a look of reproachful inquiry at Dalton and myself, as if we should have found this sovereign and suggested him.
"You are right, my dear queen; Lethal is joking," responded Dalton; "we are a democracy, and have only a queen of"
"Water ices," interrupted Lethal; "but, as for the king you seek, as democracies finally come to that,"
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Honoria, raising the curtain, "it must be he that is coming in."
Honoria frowned slightly, rose, and advanced to meet a new-comer, who had entered unannounced, and was advancing alone. Dalton followed to support her. I observed their movements,—Lethal and Adonaïs using my face as a mirror of what was passing beyond the curtain.
The masses of level light from the columns on the left seemed to envelope the stranger, who came toward us from the entrance, as if he had divined the presence of Honoria in the alcove.
He was about the middle height, Napoleonic in form and bearing, with features of marble paleness, firm, and sharply defined. His hair and magnificent Asiatic beard were jetty black, curling, and naturally disposed. Under his dark and solid brows gleamed large eyes of abysmal blackness and intensity.
"Is it Lord N———?" whispered Lethal, moved from his habitual coldness by the astonishment which he read in my face.
"Senator D———, perhaps," suggested Denslow, whose ideas, like his person, aspired to the senatorial.
"Dumas," hinted Adonaïs, an admirer of French literature. "I heard he was expected."
"No," I answered, "but certainly in appearance the most noticeable man living. Let us go out and be introduced."
"Perhaps," said Lethal, "it is the d———."
All rose instantly at the idea, and we went forward, urged by irresistible curiosity.
As we drew near the stranger, who was conversing with Honoria and Dalton, a shudder went through me. It was a thrill of the universal Boswell; I seemed to feel the presence of "the most aristocratic man of the age."
Honoria introduced me. "My Lord Duke, allow me to present my friend, Mr. De Vere; Mr. De Vere, the Duke of Rosecouleur."
Was I, then, face to face with, nay, touching the hand of a highness,—and that highness the monarch of the ton? And is this a ducal hand, white as the albescent down of the eider-duck, which presses mine with a tender touch, so haughty and so delicately graduated to my standing as "friend" of the exquisite Honoria? It was too much; I could have wept; my senses rather failed.
Dalton fell short of himself; for, though his head stooped to none, unless conventionally, the sudden and unaccountable presence of the Duke of Rosecouleur annoyed and perplexed him. His own sovereignty was threatened.
Lethal stiffened himself to the ordeal of an introduction; the affair seemed to exasperate him. Denslow alone, of the men, was in his element. Pompous and soft, he "cottoned" to the grandeur with the instinct of a born satellite, and his eyes grew brighter, his body more shining and rotund, his back more concave. His bon-vivant tones, jolly and conventional, sounded a pure barytone to the clear soprano of Honoria, in the harmony of an obsequious welcome.
The Duke of Rosecouleur glanced around him approvingly upon the apartments. I believed that he had never seen anything more beautiful than the petite palace of Honoria, or more ravishing than herself. He said little, in a low voice, and always to one person at a time. His answers and remarks were simple and well-turned.
Dalton allowed the others to move on, and by a slight sign drew me to him.
