“What, Lady Cynthia still?”
“Still!” echoed Gustave with a tragic air. But he recovered in a moment. “Lady Cynthia being, however, in Switzerland, there is no reason why I should not go to Normandy.”
“Oh, Normandy?”
“Precisely. It is there that the duchess—”
“Oho! The duchess?”
“Is residing in retirement in a small château, alone save for my sister’s society.”
“And a servant or two, I presume?”
“You are just right, a servant or two; for he is most stingy to her (though not, they say, to everybody), and gives her nothing when he is away.”
“Money is a temptation, you see.”
“Mon Dieu, to have none is a greater!” and Gustave shook his head solemnly.