Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/375

344 in her washed-out eyes. "Wasn't there—any American boy, my dear?" she asked.

"I—I—hundreds of them," answered Cynthia Meyrick, trying to laugh.

The duchess turned away.

"It's wrong of me to discourage you like that," she said. "Marrying into the peerage is something, after all. You must come home every year—insist on it. Johnson—are these the best caviar bowls the hotel can furnish?"

And the Duchess of Lismore, late of Detroit, drifted off into a bitter argument with the humble Johnson.

Miss Meyrick strolled away, out upon a little balcony opening off the dining-room. She stood gazing down at the waving fronds in the court-yard six stories below. If only that fountain down there were Ponce de Leon's! But it wasn't To-morrow she must put youth behind. She must go far from the country she loved—did she care enough for that? Strangely enough, burning tears filled her eyes. Hot revolt surged into her heart. She stood looking down

Meanwhile the other members of the