If she does, I'll let you know." The duke was terribly mortified.

He apologized beautifully.
Then Blakely apologized for getting angry, and they became better friends than ever, with the result that the duke was presented to me that very afternoon.
The Grand Duke Alexander was short and fat and fair, with a yellow mustache of the Kaiser Wilhelm variety.

It was rather a shock to me, for I had expected a dashing black-haired person with flashing eyes and a commanding presence.

No, he wasn't at all my idea of what a grand duke should look like; he looked much more like a little brother to the ox (a well-bred, well-dressed, bath-loving little brother, of course) than a member of an imperial family.

Not that he didn't have his points: he had nice hands and nice feet, and his smile was charming.
You should have seen his face light up when he found I spoke French.
The poor fellow wasn't a bit at home in the English language and the eagerness with which he plunged into French was really pathetic.
Luckily, Blakely spoke French, too--not very well, but he understood it lots better than he spoke it--so we three spent a pleasant hour together on the veranda.