LADIES-IN-WAITING
by Jamaica or Porto Rico or Trinidad or Bermuda and lots of other islands, and I think some of the messages must be personally conducted straight to New York by powerful swimmers, judging by the cost.”
“Go on. Don’t temporize.”
“I need n’t repeat all of them, and in fact I have n’t copies. Duke, after he had my first telegram from St. Thomas, wired back to St. Croix, ‘You are willing to take my name. Why, after all, should n’t I refuse your sacrifice and make one of my own by taking yours?’ Was n’t that noble?”
“It would have softened the heart of a suffragette or a feminist. What did you reply?”
“I said: ‘Never in the world!’”
“‘Never’ would have been enough. You wasted three words at a dollar or so apiece.”
“I wanted to be strong. I said: ‘Never in the world! I am not going to have you criticized and nagged and made unhappy, as if your name were a crime!’ Then he wired: ‘But it would remove objections, and cost only six
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