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My liver--"
"Ah, yes!" said Mr. Keith with a sigh. "No wonder you hesitate. It is
quite disheartening, all that drunkenness."



CHAPTER VI


It stands to reason that the Duchess was not a Duchess at all. She was
American by birth, from some Western state, and her first husband had
been an army man. Her second spouse--he, too, had died long ago--was
Italian. In view of his passionate devotion to the Catholic Church and
of a further payment of fifty thousand francs, he had been raised to
the rank of Papal Marquis. He died relatively young. Had his life been
spared, as it ought to have been, he might well have become a Papal
Duke in course of time. He was carried off by an accident not of his
own contriving--run over by a tramcar in Rome--before that further ducal
premium was even expected to be paid. But for this, he ought to have
died a Duke. He would have been a Duke, by this time.
His widow, taking these things into consideration, felt it her duty to
appropriate the more sonorous of the two titles open to her.


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