They tried to tempt her with the prospect of being repatriated.  Strenuously she opposed the notion, on grounds of health.  She argued that she had come to the South at the bidding of her English doctor—­which was true enough, that grave personage having been urgently pressed by the family to make a suggestion; a return to England, she declared, would be the death of her.  If any attempt were made to interfere with her liberty in this manner, she would appeal to the local Court for protection.

Then the project of sending her to an Inebriates’ Home on the mainland was mooted.  A sprightly young clergyman, not long resident on Nepenthe, volunteered for the delicate task of persuading the lady to take this step; it would be given out that she was merely undergoing a “rest cure.”  The sprightly young clergyman started on his mission full of bright expectations.  He returned anon, looking prematurely aged.  Nobody could get a word out of him at first; he seemed top have become afflicted with a partial paralysis of the tongue.  After babbling childishly for an hour or so he fell silent altogether, and it was not till next morning that he recovered full powers of speech.  Wild horses, he then announced, would not drag form his lips what had passed at the interview.

As a last resource it was decided to inaugurate a sanatorium on the island for her especial benefit, with a trained nurse permanently in attendance; during her ever-decreasing spells of sobriety the place, together with the nurse, could be utilized for needle-classes and so forth.  Money was required.  A committee of ladies and gentlemen collected a certain small amount, but their hopes did not rise high till the day when the Duchess broached the subject to her countryman, Mr. van Koppen, after inveigling him into what she called “a friendly teat-a-teat.”  Surfeited to bursting-point with his favourite tea-cakes, the millionaire was in a lovely humour.  He declared his readiness, then and there, to subscribe half a million francs to the scheme if—­if his good friend Mr. Keith would make himself responsible for a similar sum, or even a thousandth part of it.

“Half a million francs—­what’s that, Duchess, as the price of a smile from yourself?  Cheap.  Dirt cheap!”

“Another one?” queried the lady.

“Well, just one.  I can’t swallow any more.  But I can still chew.”

So fatuously fond was he of this particular variety of condiment that, on their account alone, he would have imported the Duchess and her entire establishment into America.  For all that, old Koppen was no fool.  Half a million buttered tea-cakes could not impair the lively workings of a brain which had long ago mapped out a swift and sure path to worldly success.  He had wind of this project; his answer was carefully prepared.  It was a mathematical certainty that not one cent of those half-million francs would ever leave his pocket.  For he knew what the Committee did not know—­the real