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The Duchess had all the
aplomb of La Pompadour, but not much of her French accent. Her Italian,
too, was somewhat embryonic. That mattered little. The external
impression, the grand manner, was everything. She was not lame, though
she generally leaned on somebody's arm or a stick. It was rather a
pretty stick. She would have worm a pomander in her hair, or on a
chatelaine, if anybody had told her what a pomander was. As her friends
were unable to enlighten her--Mr. Keith even hinting that it was an
object which could not be mentioned in polite society--she contented
herself with a couple of patches.
Her rooms in that disused convent were an interminable suite of
rectangular chambers, unpretentious but solidly built, with straight
corridors running alongside. You beheld pretty pavements of
old-fashioned tiles, not overmuch furniture, one or two portraits of
the Pope, and abundance of flowers and crucifixes. The Duchess
specialized in flowers and crucifixes. Everybody, aware of her fondness
for them, gave her either the one or the other, or both.


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