“Debts are an asset--if contracted in a way that would seem romantic to a girl. Then, there’s your title. That’s a big asset either in England or America. And you’ve got a fairly good disposition and nice manners, and you pretend indifference charmingly, assisted by your eyeglass. And your character is not too bad. Not too good, either. I’ve heard one or two rather thick stories of you. If I were your wife I’d keep an eye on the money--you _will_ gamble. But your character is well up to the average for our kind of people.” “I’ve been rather bad, I’m afraid,” he said, in the shallowly penitent tone in which human beings glory in the sins they are proud of. “I’ve been as bad as I knew how to be.” “All of us are that, I fancy,” replied Honoria, rising. “I sha’n’t trouble you to confess to me. Save it for--her. Good-night.” She put out her hand friendlily. “I think we shall be friends.” Frothingham looked after her as she went with her father down the deck toward the main companion-way. “She _is_ a queer lot,” he muttered. “I suppose that’s American. Well, if it’s a fair specimen, I certainly sha’n’t be bored in America.” III NEW YORK, 6 November. _My Dear Eve_: I’m just sending you off the newspapers with the accounts of George’s wedding. Don’t show them about, please, as he’s frightfully cut up over them. He swears he’ll never set foot in this country again, or let his Duchess come. You’ll be tremendously amused as you read. You’ll never have seen anything so frank and personal. And the illustrations! We’ve done nothing but dodge cameras when we weren’t dodging reporters. I don’t agree with George--I think it’s great fun. They let me off easy, as you’ll see, and some of the pictures of me are not half bad. But I don’t wonder that George is furious. Just read the descriptions of his looks--and really he’s looking horribly seedy. And don’t neglect the accounts of the new Duchess’ papa, and how he came by his cash. He must be a gory old vulture--though really he doesn’t look it, and except when he gets to going it hard his English is fairly good, of the nosey, Yankee kind. George came down to the dock to meet me. He was in a _blue fury_. It seems the newspapers had been making a fearful row over him from the moment he left the other side. And then by illustrated accounts of his houses, his property, his family, and himself, not to speak of what they printed about the Dowies’ past and present, they set the crowds to collecting at his hotel, and to following him round the streets. They published even what he ate and drank, and the size of the tips he gave the servants. And after the engagement was announced the excitement became something incredible. He couldn’t poke his nose out of his rooms that somebody didn’t collect the crowd by shouting, “There’s his Dooklets, there’s the little fellow”--and you know Georgie is a _bit_ sensitive about his size.