"Thank you," said Saint-Remy, dryly, "I cannot accompany you."
"Well, then, good night, my dear fellow. Have you and my wife quarrelled, for she is getting into her carriage without saying a word to you?"
And at this moment, the duchess's berline having drawn up at the steps, she entered it.
"Now, cousin," said Conrad, waiting for M. de Lucenay with an air of deference.
"Get in! Get in!" said the duke, who had stopped a moment, and, from the door, was contemplating the elegant equipage of the vicomte. "Are those your grays, Saint-Remy?"
"Yes."
"And your jolly-looking Edwards! He's what I call a right sort of coachman. How well he has his horses in hand! To do justice, there is no one who, like Saint-Remy, does things in such devilish high style!"
"My dear fellow, Madame de Lucenay and your cousin are waiting for you," said M. de Saint-Remy, with bitterness.
"Pardieu! and that's true. What a forgetful rascal I am! Au revoir, Saint-Remy. Ah, I forgot," said the duke, stopping half way down the steps, "if you have nothing better to do, come and dine with us to-morrow. Lord Dudley has sent us some grouse from Scotland, and they are out-of-the-way things, you know. You'll come, won't you?" And the duke sprang into the carriage which contained his wife and Conrad.
Saint-Remy remained alone on the steps, and saw the carriage drive away. His own then drove up. He got into it, casting on that house which he had so often entered as master, and which now he so ignominiously quitted, a look of anger, hatred, and despair.