A wealthy widow with a somewhat dubious reputation organizes a country party on Valentine's Day, to which she invites an equal number of men and women. Among the invited gentlemen is a certain duke, for whom the widow has far-reaching plans. But at the very last moment one of the ladies refuses to come. And the widow is forced to invite an old maid who lives nearby on the estate of her wealthy brother. The story is included in the collection “Tokens of Love” (1993) Translation was carried out on the website VeraEditing: NATALY The text of the book was translated from the original language using an artificial intelligence program. For the most part, the translation of the text is of very high quality, but in some cases, due to the imperfection of the technology, there may be incorrect phrase translations in the text, as well as single words and expressions may not be translated.