“I have a party tonight,” the Duchess was saying, “but some of my guests have not yet arrived. However I would like you to meet those who have.”
The Duchess then introduced him to two gentlemen, each with high-sounding foreign titles and a rather vacant-looking Peer who the Marquis vaguely remembered having heard was making a fool of himself in London by gambling for astronomical stakes.
The Duchess, however, had no intention of boring him with people he did not know.
She led the Marquis across the room to a sofa where they were out of earshot of the others and she then started to flatter him in a manner that he realised was subtle and at the same time intelligent.
The Duchess obviously knew more about him than he did about her and he found her amusing and she made him laugh.
Finally,
