Ormskirk slapped his thigh. "So you intercepted that last despatch, after all! And I could have sworn Candale was trustworthy!"
"My adored Jean," replied de Puysange, "he has been in my pay for six months! Console yourself with the reflection that you overbid us in Noumaria."
"Yes, but old Ludwig held out for more than the whole duchy is worth. We paid of course. We had to pay."
"And one of course congratulates you upon securing the quite essential support of that duchy. Still, Jean, if there were any accident—" De Puysange was really unbelievably ugly when he smiled. "For accidents do occur…. It is war, then?"
"My dear fellow," said Ormskirk, "of course it is war. We are about to fly at each other's throats, with half of Europe to back each of us. We begin the greatest game we have ever played. And we will manage it very badly, I dare say, since we are each of us just now besotted with adoration of our wives."
"At times," said de Puysange, with dignity, "your galimatias are insufferable. Now let us talk like reasonable beings. In regard to Pomerania, you will readily understand that the interests of humanity—"
IV
Still the suggestion haunted him. It would be a nuance too ridiculous, of course, to care seriously for one's wife, and yet Hélène de Puysange was undeniably a handsome woman. As they sat over the remains of their dinner,—à deux, by the Duke's request,—she seemed to her husband quite incredibly beautiful. She exhaled the effects of a water-color in discreet and delicate tinctures. Lithe and fine and proud she was to the merest glance; yet patience, a thought conscious of itself, beaconed in her eyes, and she appeared, with urbanity, to regard life as, upon the whole, a countrified performance. De Puysange liked that air; he liked the reticence of every glance and speech and gesture,—liked, above all, the thinnish oval of her face and the staid splendor of her hair. Here was no vulgar yellow, no crass and hackneyed gold … and yet there was a clarified and gauzier shade of gold … the color of the moon by daylight, say…. Then, as the pleasures of digestion lapsed gently into the initial amenities of sleep, she spoke.
"Monsieur," said she, "will you be pleased to tell me the meaning of this comedy?"
"Madame," de Puysange answered, and raised his gloomy eyebrows, "I do not entirely comprehend."