But no sooner had he set foot there than he received a message that the Duchesse desired to see him immediately. Up to the Dowager's suite he then mounted, to find his venerable relative playing piquet with her dame de compagnie.
"Aha! here you are at last!" said the Duchesse, evidently in high good humour. "Masson, you can go. Well, my child, what have you to say for yourself?"
Was it possible—incredible though it seemed—that Horatia had been complaining to Madame de la Roche-Guyon? If so, the old lady had evidently not taken her part.
"What do you want me to say?" enquired the Comte, cautiously.
"What do I want you to say? Armand, you are unpayable!" And the Dowager went off into a scream of laughter, causing the little Italian greyhound to spring up shivering in his basket. "Sit down, and tell me why you rushed out of the house directly you had heard the news. I was waiting to send for you to congratulate you."
"To congratulate me? ... On what?" Enlightenment came in the midst of his wonder. "Juste ciel! So that was why——"
"You don't mean to say that you really did not know—that she did not tell you just now?"
Armand sat down, feeling rather dizzy. "No, not a word. She only said that she wanted to go to Brittany at once, and I—— What a fool I was not to guess!"
"In that sentiment," observed his grandmother, "I fully concur. And what did you say about Brittany?"
"I—well, I refused to go."