“Just as the church clocks were striking six, madam.”
“Good. This ridiculous little mollycoddle François had said his prayers and was in bed before midnight. Lord! That ever I should be afflicted with such a man in my family!”
“Madam,” said poor François, with a feeble grin, “I was the worse for liquor yesterday—indeed I was!”
“No doubt,” scoffed the old Duchess; “a bottle of cowslip wine would put you in bed for a week. Now, Mr. Egremont, I am giving a rout to-morrow night, and you must come. Have you no curiosity to meet my niece, Mademoiselle d’Orantia?”
“Madam, I have the greatest curiosity to meet Mademoiselle d’Orantia,” Rogers replied, with all the sincerity in the world, bowing with his hand on his heart, “and I accept with the utmost gratitude your invitation.”
“My niece was the only living human being in all these parts who was not at the masquerade. She remained at home, reading and writing, and then went to the meadows in the afternoon—and came back smiling, and said she had had an adventure. But she would not say what it was.”
So Michelle and he had a secret between them. Roger was suddenly made happy by the thought.
All that evening and the next day he was in a dream. A letter-bag from England had arrived, and in spite of his promise of release from so much writing, he, with three other secretaries, worked hard from early in the morning until sunset. And then Roger, more wearied with his day of writing than if he had walked or ridden a hundred miles, went back to the inn of Michot. He ate his supper in the common room, and then went to his attic under the eaves, and shaved and dressed himself carefully, having long been used to do without a servant. He wore his own hair, unpowdered, partly from vanity in his long and thickly curling chestnut locks, and partly from the want of a man-servant. His one suit was a gray and silver, bought in Paris, and his sword was the one given him by Berwick. His figure and air set off his dress, and he was not unmindful of his looks. He was wondering ruefully how he should get to the château, when a message came up that the Duke of Berwick awaited him in a coach. Roger went down, and stepped into the coach. Berwick was dressed with an elegant simplicity which nobly became him, and, like Roger, wore his own hair.
“I dare not present myself to the Duchess without you,” he said laughing, as they rolled along the highroad toward the château. “The old lady does you the honor to class you with King Charles’s men; and though I think she overrates you in that respect, she is monstrous anxious for your company, to improve François, so she told me. And then, you will have the chance of meeting that enchanting Princess d’Orantia.”
“Is she so beautiful?” asked Roger, innocently.