His Fortunate Grace by Gertrude Atherton — Read

THE next day Cuyler took the Duke to call on Mrs. Forbes in her house. It was five o'clock and the lamps were lit. Augusta's particular set were there, talking Socialism over their tea, and enlightening a half-dozen young men and elderly club _roués_, who listened with becoming gravity. Mrs. Forbes sat somewhat apart by the tea-table talking to three or four men on any subject but Socialism. She wore a gown of dark-red velvet with a collar of Venetian lace and sat in a large high-backed chair of ebony, inlaid with ivory. The seat was also high, and she looked somewhat like a queen on her throne, graciously receiving the homage of her courtiers. The drawing-room was twice as large as the Creighton's, the Duke noted as he entered. It was hung with dark-green velvet embroidered with a tree design in wood colour an inch thick. Every shade of green blended in the great apartment, and there was no other colour but the wood relief and the pink of the lamp-shades.

Mrs. Forbes did not rise, but she held out her hand to the stranger with so spontaneous a warmth that he felt as if he were receiving his first welcome in transatlantic parts. She had not shaken hands with him at the opera, and their brief conversation had been over her shoulder; he now found that her eyes and hand, her womanly magnetism and almost regal manner combined to effect the impression: "New York, _c'est moi_. My hospitality to the elect few who win my favour is sincere and unbounded, the bitter envy of the cold and superfluous stranger without its gates; and, of all men, my dear Duke of Bosworth, you are the most genuinely welcome."