As for Humphrey, whose heart and soul had only room for the image of one woman, Jacquette, he turned on his heel after a pleasant nod to his gossip and a promise to speak to Fleur de Mai and bid him be of better demeanour, and went along the corridor to where the Duchess was.
He found her in her salon, occupied much as he had always known her to be when he had ever been permitted entrance to her apartments in her husband's house in Paris. Her guitar lay on her knee, the blue silken ribbons thereof dangling down to her little feet encased in gold broidered slippers; by her side was a vellum-bound copy of Massuccio's novellinos: on a table in front of her a flask of Coindrieux.
Near her, directing a buxom maid to pack into a small valise, or havresack, all the clothes which the Duchess would carry with her across the Alps, was Jacquette.
"Ah, ha!" the Duchess exclaimed. "So 'tis you, monsieur. And did you sleep well and soft, amico?"
"Yes, I slept well enough, madame. On one side of my room was one guardian angel--yourself. On the other--perhaps another one. Another fair lady."
"Another!"
"There is a lady, madame," Jacquette said, "who has the apartment of three rooms next to Humphrey's. Her salon is next to his sleeping room, her bedroom next to that, and her maid's beyond that."
"Who is she?"
"She is, madame, a French lady who has travelled from Nancy. The Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville. She----"
"Ah!" with a slight start.