“De Mauban,” growled Bertram.
“Oho!” said I, passing by the question of the `de’. “You don’t mean to say, Bert—?”
“Can’t you let me alone?”
“Where’s she going to?” I asked, for the lady was something of a celebrity.
George jingled his money, smiled cruelly at poor Bertram, and answered pleasantly:
“Nobody knows. By the way, Bert, I met a great man at her house the other night—at least, about a month ago. Did you ever meet him—the Duke of Strelsau?”
“Yes, I did,” growled Bertram.
“An extremely accomplished man, I thought him.”
It was not hard to see that George’s references to the duke were intended to aggravate poor Bertram’s sufferings, so that I drew the inference that the duke had distinguished Madame de Mauban by his attentions. She was a widow, rich, handsome, and, according to repute, ambitious. It was quite possible that she, as George put it, was flying as high as a personage who was everything he could be, short of enjoying strictly royal rank: for the duke was the son of the late King of Ruritania by a second and morganatic marriage, and half-brother to the new King. He had been his father’s favourite, and it had occasioned some unfavourable comment when he had been created a duke, with a title derived from no less a city than the capital itself. His mother had been of good, but not exalted, birth.
“He’s not in Paris now, is he?” I asked.