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Lord Loveland Discovers America
Lord Loveland Discovers America
CHAPTER ONE
The Discovery of America by Lord Loveland
"Even the Last Resort has refused me." Loveland broke the news to his mother when he had kissed her.
"Miss Mecklenburg?"
"Yes. I begin to realise that I'm a sinking ship. The early rats are deserting me – or declining to come on board. Clever little animals!"
"You shan't sink," protested Lady Loveland, clasping the pretty hands whence all save the wedding ring and its guard had gone to pay a visit of indefinite length to Messrs. Battenborough. "The idiot, to refuse you – with her nose, too."
"She didn't do it with her nose, Mater."
"Val, you know what I mean. And after you'd overlooked her being a Jewess!"
"Yes, it was kind of me, wasn't it? An Italian Prince has just overlooked it, too. Her engagement to Doriana was announced the morning after she'd offered to be a sister to me. It was the size of her purse, not her nose, which caught his eye. But sooner or later he'll beat her."
"I hope so. She deserves it for taking him instead of you. Oh, Val, what a world!"
"Don't grouse, Mater. I might have beaten her if I'd got her, and then there'd have been a scandal. I can't stand women with important looking teeth, and noses which throw their other features into perspective. Besides, Lillah Mecklenburg isn't as young as she's painted."
"So few women are nowadays, dearest," sighed Lady Loveland, who, in living for her handsome son, did not trouble to live up to the past of her complexion, and whose way of doing her hair was alone enough to show that though lenient to Val's weaknesses, she would not condone those of her sister women. "Oh, Val, it's hard you should have to think of such creatures. But what are we to do?"