"Ah," said she, "believe me, I do not undervalue your perception. I have always esteemed your cleverness, monsieur, however much"—she paused for a moment, a fluctuating smile upon her lips,—"however much I may have regretted its manifestations. I am not clever, and to me cleverness has always seemed to be an infinite incapacity for hard work; its results are usually a few sonnets, an undesirable wife, and a warning for one's acquaintances. In your case it is, of course, different; you have your statesmanship to play with—"
"And statesmen have no need of cleverness, you would imply, madame?"
"I do not say that. In any event, you are the Duc de Puysange, and the weight of a great name stifles stupidity and cleverness without any partiality. With you, cleverness has taken the form of a tendency to intoxication, amours, and—amiability. I have acquiesced in this. But, for the past month—"
"The happiest period of my life!" breathed the Duke.
"—you have been pleased to present me with flowers, bonbons, jewels, and what not. You have actually accorded your wife the courtesies you usually preserve for the ladies of the ballet. You have dogged my footsteps, you have attempted to intrude into my bedroom, you have talked to me as—well, very much as—"
"Much as the others do?" de Puysange queried, helpfully. "Pardon me, madame, but, in one's own husband, I had thought this very routine might savor of originality."
The Duchess flushed, "All the world knows, monsieur, that in your estimation what men have said to me, or I to them, has been for fifteen years a matter of no moment! It is not due to you that I am still—"
"A pearl," finished the Duke, gallantly,—then touched himself upon the chest,—"cast before swine," he sighed.
She rose to her feet. "Yes, cast before swine!" she cried, with a quick lift of speech. She seemed very tall as she stood tapping her fingers upon the table, irresolutely; but after an instant she laughed and spread out her fine hands in an impotent gesture. "Ah, monsieur," she said, "my father entrusted to your keeping a clean-minded girl! What have you made of her, Gaston?"
A strange and profoundly unreasonable happiness swept through the Duke's soul as she spoke his given name for the first time within his memory. Surely, the deep contralto voice had lingered over it?—half-tenderly, half-caressingly, one might think.