“He is not a popular man in our world,” she remarked. “One speaks of him as a schemer.”
“Is there anything left to scheme for in France?” Peter asked, carelessly. “He is, perhaps, a monarchist?”
“His ancestry alone would compel a devoted allegiance to royalism,” the Duchesse declared, “but I do not think that he is interested in any of these futile plots to reinstate the House of Orleans. I, Monsieur le Baron, am Spanish.”
“I have scarcely lived so far out of the world as to have heard nothing of the Duchesse della Nermino,” Peter replied with empressement. “The last time I saw you, Duchesse, you were in the suite of the Infanta.”
“Like all Englishmen, I see you possess a memory,” she said, smiling.
“Duchesse,” Peter answered, lowering his voice, “without the memories which one is fortunate enough to collect as one passes along, life would be a dreary place. The most beautiful things in the world cannot remain always with us. It is well, then, that the shadow of them can be recalled to us in the shape of dreams.”
Her eyes rewarded him for his gallantry. Peter felt that he was doing very well indeed. He indulged himself in a brief silence. Presently she returned to the subject of Sogrange.
“I think,” she remarked, “that of all the men in the world I expected least to see the Marquis de Sogrange on board a steamer bound for New York. What can a man of his type find to amuse him in the New World?”
“One wonders, indeed,” Peter assented. “As a matter of fact, I did read in a newspaper a few days ago that he was going to Mexico in connection with some excavations there. He spoke to me of it just now. They seem to have discovered a ruined temple of the Incas, or something of the sort.”
The Duchesse breathed what sounded very much like a sigh of relief.