As a matter of fact, Joe Ellison might have been her son-in-law but for her own firm attitude.

He had known her daughter very much better than her words to Larry the previous evening had indicated.
Not only had Joe known her while a girl down here, but much later he had learned in what convent she was going to school and there had been surreptitious love-making despite convent rules and boundaries--till the Duchess had learned what was going on.

She had had a square out-and-out talk with Joe; the romance had suddenly ended; and later Larry's mother had married elsewhere.

But the snuffed-out romance had made no difference in the friendship between the Duchess and Joe; each had recognized the other as square, as that word was understood in their border world.
To Joe Ellison the Duchess was changed but little since twenty-odd years ago.

She had seemed old even then; though as a youth he had known old men who had talked of her beauty when a young woman and of how she had queened it among the reckless spirits of that far time.