"Do you call the farmer fool, because he is not satisfied with the soil, but wishes to grow wheat thereon? Money is the soil of power. For much less than a million one may gratify the senses; great fortunes are not for sensual luxuries, but for those of the soul. To the facts, then. The advent of this mysterious duke,--whom I doubt,--hailed by Denslow and Honoria as a piece of wonderful good-fortune, has already shaken him and ruined the _prestige_ of his wife. They are mad and blind." "Tell me, in plain prose, the _how_ and the _why_." "De Vere, you are dull. There are three hundred people in the rooms of the Denslow Palace; these people are the 'aristocracy.' They control the sentiments of the 'better class.' Opinion, like dress, descends from them. They no longer respect Denslow, and their women have seen the weakness of Honoria." "Yes, but Denslow still has 'the people.'" "That is not enough. I have calculated the chances, and mustered all our available force. We shall have no support among the 'better class,' since we are disgraced with the 'millionnaires.'" At this moment Denslow came in. "Ah! Dalton,--like you! I have been looking for you to show the pictures. Devil a thing I know about them. The Duke wondered at your absence." "Where is Honoria?" "Ill, ill,--fainted. The house is new; smell of new wood and mortar; deused disagreeable in Honoria. If it had not been for the Duke, she would have fallen. That's a monstrous clever fellow, that Rosecouleur. Admires Honoria vastly. Come,--the pictures." "Mr. John Vanbrugen Denslow, you are an ass!" The large, smooth, florid millionnaire, dreaming only of senatorial honors, the shouts of the multitude, and the adoration of a party press, cowered like a dog under the lash of the "man of society." "Rather rough,--ha, De Vere? What have _I_ done? Am I an ass because I know nothing of pictures? Come, Dalton, you are harsh with your old friend." "Denslow, I have told you a thousand times never to concede position." "Yes, but this is a duke, man,--a prince!" "This from you? By Jove, De Vere, I wish you and I could live a hundred years, to see a republican aristocrat. We are still mere provincials," added Dalton, with a sigh. Denslow perspired with mortification. "You use me badly,--I tell you, Dalton, this Rosecouleur is a devil. Condescend to him! be haughty and--what do you call it?--urbane to him! I defy _you_ to do it, with all your impudence. Why, his valet, that shadow that glides after him, is too much for me. Try him yourself, man." "Who, the valet?" "No, the master,--though I might have said the valet." "Did I yield in Paris?" "No, but you were of the embassy, and--and--_no one really knew us_, you know." Dalton pressed his lips hard together. "Come," said he, "De Vere, let us try a fall with this Titan of the carpet." Denslow hastened back to the Duke. I followed Dalton; but as for me, bah! I am a cipher.