Brilliant Dinner Reaches Climax in Shower of Costly Crystal While
Hostess Smiles Approval.
Disgusting as it was, I couldn't help laughing at the pen-and-ink
sketch which accompanied it--a sketch of the duke, with crowned
head, and breast covered with decorations, smiling fatuously from
within a rakish bordef, of broken champagne glasses.
But there was worse to come. On another page under the heading:
WHIRLWIND WOOING WINS WESTERN GIRL
a distorted Cupid supported pictures of Blakely and me, while
beneath our pictures, a most fulsome chronicle of untruths was
presented. "Mr. Porter first met his fiancee on shipboard . . .
Being of that fine old New York stock which never takes 'no' for an
answer, he followed her to Santa Barbara . . . If rumor is to be
credited, the Grand Duke Alexander, as well as Cupid, was concerned
in this singularly up-to-date love affair . . . Mr. Porter's sister,
the Countess de Bienville, is a well-known leader in exclusive
Parisian circles . . . Miss Middleton an only daughter of Thomas
Middleton, the mining magnate . . . Although slightly indisposed,
His Imperial Highness granted an interview to our representative
late last evening.
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