He put his free hand to his sword.
“That is foolish of you,” he said. “I am here.”
“But you have begun to cease to care,” her voice wailed, “and you will go away.”
As she spoke a door opened to her right, and she released his wrist; he followed her into a little boudoir charmingly hung with straw-coloured silk.
The Duke remembered it very well; he turned to the woman.
She was now a pale blonde wrapped in an embroidered mob and wearing dazzling little silver slippers.
Her face was tear-stained and her eyes pleading.
“Paris was terrible after you left,” she said. “Why did you go? You tired so soon.”
“You have remarked that,” he returned, “twice, I think, before.”