“You flatter your Fanchette and your own taste, Charlot——”
“That, in short, her god of gold is revealed a god of brass, I thank your Highness. So this M. Tiretta, if I have judged aright, falls from his estate of perfection. After all, a woman wears a lover as she does a robe—exclusively, that is to say; a thing for her sole possession. Fashions grow out of fashion when the lesser ape them.”
The duke, meditating darkly awhile, rose from his chair, and went pacing frowningly to and fro.
“So,” said he, stopping suddenly in his walk, “I am to understand that you have taken these means on your own responsibility, and that you consider yourself justified in taking them. Why?”
“Because, in doing so, I believe myself to be acting as your Highness’s true friend.”
“But why, man, why? In what lies your justification? That is what I want to know.”
“In my little friend’s reports.”
“Of an intrigue?”
“Of an intrigue in the making, at least.”
“And now nipped in the bud?”