“Upon my word, Madame la Duchesse, I—I forget it myself at the moment,” said Count Victor, divining her strategy, but too much embarrassed to play up to her lead. “Perhaps madame may remember.”
She drew down her brows in a comical frown, and then rippled into low laughter. “Now, how in the world should I know if monsieur does not? I, that have never”—here she stared in his face with a solemnity in which her amusement struggled—“never, to my knowledge, seen him before. I have heard the Duke speak of a certain M. Soi-disant! perhaps monsieur is Monsieur Soi-disant?”
“Sans doute, Madame la Duchesse, and madame's very humble servant,” acquiesced Count Victor, relieved to have his first impression of strategy confirmed, and inclining his head.
She looked at him archly and laughed again. “I have a great admiration for your sex, M. Soi-disant,” she said; “my dear Duke compels it, but now and then—now and then—I think it a little stupid. Not to know your own name! I hope monsieur does not hope to go through life depending upon women all the time to set him at ease in his chair. You are obviously not at ease in your chair, Monsieur Soi-disant.”
“It is this coat, Madame la Duchesse,” Count Victor replied, looking down at the somewhat too ample sleeves and skirt; “I fell into it—”
“That is very obvious,” she interrupted, with no effort to conceal her amusement.
“I fell into it by sheer accident, and it fits me like an evil habit, and under the circumstances is as inconvenient to get rid of.”
“And still an excellent coat, monsieur. Let me see; has it not a familiar look? Oh! I remember; it is very like one I have seen with the Duke's Chamberlain—poor fellow! Monsieur has doubtless heard of his accident, and will be glad to learn that he is out of danger, and like to be abroad in a very short time.”
This was a humour touching him too closely; he replied in a monosyllable.
“Perhaps it was the coat gave me the impression that I had seen monsieur somewhere before. He reminds me, as I have said, of a compatriot who was the cause of the Chamberlain's injury.”