22/25 And the next moment the place where he had stood was vacant. "I hope they won't really drag in that horrible Duke de Crecy!" Mrs.De Peyster shuddered, too. The episode of the Duke de Crecy was still salt in an unhealed social wound. The Duke had been New York's most distinguished titled visitor the previous winter; Mrs.De Peyster, to the general envy, had led in his entertainment; there had been whispers of another international marriage. And then, after respectful adieus, the Duke had sailed away--and within a month the papers were giving columns to his scandalous escapades with a sensational Spanish dancer of parsimonious drapery. |