Part 26

"One might at least make the effort, Dorothea! I notice that most of the people who disdain diamonds generally possess three garnets, two amethysts, and one Mexican opal."

Dolly laughed. "You know I did emulate the celebrated Mrs. Dombey, mother."

"I know you made a very brief and feeble effort to be sensible, and you might have conquered yourself had it not been for the sudden appearance of this young Hogg on your horizon."

"You shall not call him a young Hogg!" cried Dolly passionately. "It isn't fair; I won't endure it!"

"I thought that was his name," remarked Mrs. Valentine, placidly shifting a wrinkle-plaster from one place to another. "You wouldn't object if I had alluded to young Benham or young Wadsworth. You show by your very excitement how disagreeable his name is to your ears. It isn't a question of argument; Marmaduke Hogg is an outrageous, offensive name; if he had been Charles or James it would have been more decent. The 'Marmaduke' simply calls attention to the 'Hogg.' If any one had asked to introduce a person named Hogg to me I should have declined."

"I've told you a dozen times, mother, that the Wilmots' house-party was at breakfast when I arrived from the night train. There was a perfect Babel and everybody was calling him 'Duke.' He looked like one, and nobody said--the other. I didn't even hear his last name till evening, and then it was too late."

"'Too late!' Really, Dorothea, if you have no sense of propriety you may leave the room!"--and Mrs. Valentine applied the smelling-bottle to her birdlike nose as a sign that her nerves were racked to the limit and she might at any moment succumb.

"All I know is," continued Dorothea obstinately, "that he was the best-looking, the most interesting, the cleverest, the most companionable man in the house-party, or for that matter in the universe. You don't ask the last name of Orlando, or Benedick, or Marcus Aurelius, or Albert of Belgium."

"It wouldn't be necessary." (Here Mrs. Valentine was quite imperturbable.) "The Valentines have never been required to associate with theatrical people or foreigners. In some ways I dislike the name of Marmaduke as much as Hogg. It is so bombastic that it seems somehow like an assumed name, or as if the creature had been born on the stage. When coupled with Hogg it loses what little distinction it might have had by itself. One almost wishes it had been Marmalade. Marmalade Hogg suggests a quite nauseating combination of food, but there is a certain appropriateness about it."

Dorothea's face was flaming. "You will never allow Duke to explain himself, mother, nor hear me through when I attempt to make things clear to you. You never acknowledge that you know, but you do know, that Duke's people were English a long way back, and 'Marmaduke' is an old family name. The Winthrops will tell you that Duke's father and mother were named Forrest and that they changed it to Hogg to pacify an old bachelor uncle who wanted to leave Duke six thousand dollars a year. He had no voice in the matter; he was only twelve years old."

"It was a very short-sighted business proposition, and your Duke must have been very young for his age,"--and Mrs. Valentine took another deep sniff of lavender. "Sixty thousand a year wouldn't induce me to be named Hogg, and I shall never consent to have one in my family!"

Dorothea burst into tears, a most uncommon occurrence.

"You have dwelt so long on this purely immaterial objection," she sobbed, "that you have finally inoculated me with something of your own feeling and made me miserable and ashamed. I dare say, too, I have hurt Duke's pride by trying to give him a reason for your indifferent attitude, yet never having courage for the real, piffling explanation. I am mortified at my despicable weakness and I will overcome it by realizing how unworthy I am to bear Duke's honorable, unstained name, even if it is Hogg. You might as well give up, mother! If the dearest, best, most delightful man in the world loves me, I shall marry him, name and all."

"I do not regard it as settled," replied Mrs. Valentine calmly. "The young man may not think you so desirable when he learns that my refusal to accept him as a son-in-law means that he must take you without any income. Your dear father must have foreseen some such tragedy when he left all his money in my care!"

"Duke will take me without a penny!" cried Dorothea hotly. "I would stake my life on that!"

"Don't be melodramatic, Dorothea. We shall see in time. It is just possible that the young man may not be greedy, and so belie his name." This was Mrs. Valentine's last shaft as Dorothea walked out of the room with her chin in the air.

* * * * *

S.S. Diana, January 26, 1918

St. Thomas, and Charlotte Amalia, the little town for which I was named, looked so lovely when we landed early this morning that I felt a positive thrill of pride.

This halfway house of the sea, this gateway of the Caribbean, as it has been picturesquely called, seemed, as Dolly and I climbed the hills and the stone stairways, to materialize into a birthplace instead of a vague dream. A year ago, with the Dannebrog, the scarlet, white-crossed banner of Denmark, floating over the red Danish fortress on the water-front, I might have felt an alien, but the Stars and Stripes made me feel at home and I could only remember that my father and mother met and loved each other in this little Paradise, and that when I was born there they were the two happiest people under the sun. If they could have seen their daughter saluting the American flag so near the very spot in which she first saw the light, they would have been comforted, I am sure, instead of repining that they had both been taken away when she most needed their love and protection.

Such a view from Diana's deck as we crept into the wonderful harbor! A background of towering green hills and a dazzling blue of velvet sky and crystal sea, like that of Algiers, greeted our enchanted gaze! Like some of the coast towns of Italy, Charlotte Amalia is gay with color, and its white, red-roofed villas nestle among their luxuriant gardens and tropical foliage, standing out in a perfect riot of orange and yellow, blue and red.

Never, save in Venice, have I seen such a gorgeous array of color in a landscape.

Five hours we had in St. Thomas while the Diana put off hundreds of barrels of cement; but what with the gayly painted boats and their dark-skinned crews, the naked brown boys diving and swimming for pennies and dimes in the harbor, a walk to Bluebeard's Tower and Blackbeard's Castle, we were well amused. Particularly so was Dorothea, who disappeared from my side for a half-hour while I chatted with the captain, rejoining me in the tiny palm-bordered park near the landing.

She was glowing with happiness.

"What do you think, Charlotte?" she exclaimed. "I have a letter from Duke. Not written after we sailed, of course, for it couldn't have reached me. He bearded mother in her fortress the morning we left Washington. She was out, or said she was, but sent a note saying that I had gone on a journey and would be absent for a month. He went directly to the Winthrops for news and they told him I was with you and that if he wrote at once by special delivery he could reach the ship before it left New York dock. He sent the letter to the captain and asked him to give it to me at St. Thomas for a surprise. The captain is such a nice man, though a good deal of a tease! Mr. Winthrop was delighted to hear you were not alone. Poor Miss Winthrop has influenza and they both wish they had taken this trip. It seems they are thinking of it just a little."

"The Winthrops coming on this voyage," I exclaimed. "Impossible! They hadn't an idea of it."

"Mightn't he want to interview the governor and look at the island?"

"He hasn't time. I chose this journey instead of another so that I could interview the governor and look at the islands myself."