There was but one thing wanting—a sword! Why should he not have his own back again? As he remembered the interview of the morning, the chamber in which he had left his weapon at the bidding of the Duke was close at hand, and probably it was still there. Each successive hazard audaciously faced emboldened him the more; and so he ventured along, searching amid a multitude of doors in dim rushlight till he came upon one that was different from its neighbours only inasmuch as it had a French motto painted across the panels. The motto read “Revenez bientôt,” and smiling at the omen, Count Victor once more took his valour in his fingers and turned the handle. “Revenez bientôt” he was whispering softly to himself as he noiselessly pushed in the door. The sentence froze on his lips when he saw the Duchess seated in a chair, and turned half round to look at him.
CHAPTER XXXII — THE INDISCRETION OF THE DUCHESS
There was no drawing back; the circumstances positively forbade it, even if a certain smile following fast upon the momentary embarrassment of the Duchess had not prompted him to put himself at her mercy.
“A thousand pardons, Madame la Duchesse,” he said, standing in the doorway. “Je vous dérange.”
She rose from her chair composedly, a figure of matured grace and practised courtliness, and above all with an air of what he flattered himself was friendliness. She directed him to a seat.
“The pleasure is unexpected, monsieur,” she said; “but it is a moment for quick decision, I suppose. What is the cue? To be desperate?” here she laughed softly, “or to take a chair? Monsieur has called to see his Grace. I regret exceedingly that a pressing business has called my husband to the town, and he is unlikely to be back for another hour at least. If monsieur—assuming desperation is not the cue—will please to be seated—”
Count Victor was puzzled for a second or two, but came farther into the room, and, seeing the lady resume her seat, he availed himself of her invitation and took the chair she offered.
“Madame la Duchesse,” he went on to say with some evidence of confusion that prejudiced her the more in his favour, “I am, as you see, in the drollest circumstances, and—pardon the bêtise—time is at the moment the most valuable of my assets.”
“Oh!” she cried with a low laugh that gave evidence of the sunniest disposition in the world—“Oh! that is not a pretty speech, monsieur! But there! you cannot, of course, know my powers of entertainment. Positively there need be no hurry. On my honour, as the true friend of a gentleman who looked very like monsieur, and was, by the way, a compatriot, I repeat there is no occasion for haste. I presume monsieur found no servants—those stupid servants!—to let him into the house, and wisely found an entrance for himself? How droll! It is our way in these barbaric places; people just come and go as they please; we waive ceremony. By the way, monsieur has not done me the honour to confide to me his name.”