Cupids Understudy | Page 8

that mother of yours, and keep on
loving Elizabeth, and it will all come right, you see if it don't. If it don't
come one way, it will come another; you can take my word for it." As
if Dad knew anything about it. He thought then that every woman

possessed a sweet mind and a loving heart; he thinks so now. But one
glimpse of Blakely's mother was enough for me. She had a heart of
stone; everything about her was militant, uncompromising; her eyes
were of a piercing, steely blue; the gowns she wore were insolently
elegant; she radiated a superb self-satisfaction. When she looked at you
through her lorgnette, you felt as if you were on trial for your life.
When she ceased looking, you knew you were sentenced to mount the
social scaffold. If it hadn't been for Blakely and Dad, I should have
died of rage during the first two weeks of our stay in Santa Barbara.
It was a cruel position for me, and it didn't make it easier that before we
had been there three days the whole hotel was talking about it. Of
course, every woman in the hotel who had been snubbed by Blakely's
mother instantly took my part, and as there were only two women who
hadn't been snubbed by her--Mrs. Tudor Carstairs and Mrs.
Sanderson-Spear--I was simply overwhelmed with unsolicited advice
and undesirable attention. Indeed, it was all I could do to steer a
dignified course between that uncompromising Scylla, Blakely's
mother, and the compromising Charybdis of my self-elected champions.
But I managed it, somehow. Dad bought me a stunning big automobile
in Los Angeles, and Blakely taught me how to run it; then, Blakely was
awfully fond of golf; and we spent loads of time at the Country Club.
And of course there was the palace on the hill to be inspected every
little while.
Poor Blakely! How he did hate it all! Again and again he begged Dad
to give his consent to our marrying at once. But Dad, as unconscious of
what was going on round him as a two-months-old baby, would always
insist that everything would come out all right.
"Give her time, my boy," he would say, "give her time. Your mother
isn't used to our Western way of rushing things, and she wants a little
time to get used to it."
"What if she never gets used to it?" Blakely would ask.
Then Dad would answer: "You're impatient, boy; all lovers are
impatient. Don't I know?"

"But things can't go on this way forever."
"Of course they can't," Dad would agree. "When I think things have
gone long enough, I'll have a little talk with your mother myself. She's
a dashed fine-looking woman, your mother--a dashed fine- looking
woman! Be patient with her, boy."
Poor Dad! Blakely and I were resolved that he should never have that
little talk he spoke of with so much confidence. Ideals are awfully in
the way sometimes, but nobody with a speck of decency can bear to
stand by and see them destroyed. Dad's deals had to be preserved at any
price.
Chapter Eight
And so another two weeks passed. Then, one day, a comet of amazing
brilliancy shot suddenly into our social orbit, and things happened. That
this interesting stellar phenomenon was a Russian grand duke, a
nephew of the Czar, but added to the piquancy of the situation.
The hotel was all in a flutter; the manager was beside himself with joy;
bell-boys danced jig steps in the corridors; chambermaids went about
with a distracted air--and all because the grand duke, Alexander
Melovich, was to arrive on the morrow. It was an epoch- making event.
It was better than a circus, for it was free. Copies of the Almanach de
Gotha appeared, as if by magic. Everybody was interested. Everybody
was charmed, until--
The rumor flew rapidly along the verandas. It was denied by the head
waiter, it was confirmed by the chief clerk; it was referred to the
manager himself and again confirmed. Alas, it was true! The Grand
Duke Alexander was coming, not to honor the hotel, but to honor Mrs.
Carmichael Porter; she would receive him as her guest, she would pay
the royal hotel bill, she would pay the bills of the royal suite. Yes,
Blakely's mother had captured the grand duke.
A wave of indignation swept the columns of the rank and file. They
didn't want the grand duke themselves, but they didn't want Blakely's

mother to have him; Blakely's mother and Mrs. Sanderson- Spear, and
Mrs. Tudor Carstairs. In a way, it was better than a comic opera; it was
fearfully amusing.
The grand duke, accompanied, according to the newspapers, "by the
Royal Suite and the Choicest Flower of San Francisco Society,"