His Grace — page 184: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

178 HIS GRACE. “Oh, yes; I am sure he will do that, if necessary. But in the meantime he must live in a style befitting his rank, and it would be a great mistake to submit to the arrogance of Paul Gascoigne, who loses no oppor- tunity of reminding people that he is the late duke’s heir. He has been entertaining as profusely and ex- travagantly as if he were some mushroom American millionaire, which, unluckily, is just the sort of vulgar self-assertion that succeeds in these days. Our purse is not long enough to compete with his; but at least we do mix in society as good as he can secure and perhaps a little more select. The Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Groschen-Pfennighausen are dining with us to-night.” | That was indeed a legitimate cause for pride and gratification, and I had nothing to say in disparagement of it. I don’t know that it costs much more to enter- tain Royalties at dinner than to provide a similar re- past for mere British commoners, nor would it have been at all beyond the Duke of Hurstbourne’s power to feast Royal personages in that way, if only he had kept within his income in other respects. But, as Nora had too truly said, he could not help doing what those about him did, and the magnates of the turf are, I take it, for the most part men of considerable wealth. I had not the honor of sitting down to table with their Serene Highnesses. My evening repast was served to me in another room, with many apologies and full explanations of the inexorable law of etiquette. Later on I was vouchsafed a glimpse of these exalted beings, as well as of other starred and ribboned individuals, in the drawing-room, but Hurstbourne and his mother went off to some entertainment the moment that their com (@) boo “S (E(0) m —)