The duchess looked up; she fixed her eyes on me for a moment; her eyes grew round, her brows lifted. Then her lips curved: she blushed very red; and she burst into the merriest fit of laughter.
“Oh, dear!” laughed the duchess. “Oh, what fun, Mr. Aycon!”
“It seems to me rather a serious matter,” I ventured to observe. “Leaving out all question of—of what’s correct, you know” (I became very apologetic at this point), “it’s just a little risky, isn’t it?”
Jean evidently thought so; he nodded solemnly over his cheroot.
The duchess still laughed; indeed, she was wiping her eyes with her handkerchief.
“What an opinion to have of me!” she gasped at last. “I’m not coming with you, Mr. Aycon.”
I dare say my face showed relief: I don’t know that I need be ashamed of that. My change of expression, however, set the duchess a-laughing again.
“I never saw a man look so glad,” said she gayly. Yet somewhere, lurking in the recesses of her tone—or was it of her eyes?—there was a little reproach, a little challenge. And suddenly I felt less glad: a change of feeling which I do not seek to defend.
“Then where are you going?” I asked in much curiosity.
“I am going,” said the duchess, assuming in a moment a most serious air, “into religious retirement for a few days.”