“Pas du tout!” he replied promptly, tucking them under his chair. “These experiments in costume are a foible with me.”
There was a step along the corridor outside, which made him snap off his sentence hurriedly and turn listening and apprehensive. Again the Duchess was amused.
“No, monsieur, it is not his Grace yet; you are all impatience to meet him, I see, and my poor company makes little amends for his absence; but it is as I say, he will not be back for another hour. You are interested, doubtless, in the oddities of human nature; for me I am continually laughing at the transparency of the stratagems whereby men like my husband try to lock their hearts up like a garden and throw away the key before they come into the company of their wives. I'm sure your poor feet must be cold. You did not drive? Such a night of snow too! I cannot approve of your foible for dancing-shoes to wade through snow in such weather. As I was saying, you are not only the stupid sex sometimes, but a most transparent one. I will let you into a little secret that may convince you that what I say of our Count What's-his-name not being hunted is true. I see quite clearly that the Duke is delighted to have this scandal of a duel—oh! the shocking things, duels, Monsieur Soi-disant!—shut up. In the forenoon he was mightily vexed with that poor Count What-do-you-call-him for a purely personal reason that I may tell you of later, but mainly because his duty compelled him to secure the other party to the—let us say, outrage. You follow, Monsieur Soi-disant?”
“Parfaitement, Madame la Duchesse,” said Count Victor, wondering where all this led to.
“I am a foolish sentimentalist, I daresay you may think—for a person of my age (are you quite comfortable, monsieur? I fear that chair does not suit you)—I am a foolish sentimentalist, as I have said, and I may tell you I pleaded very hard for the release of this luckless compatriot of yours who was then in the fosse. But, oh dear! his Grace was adamant, as is the way with dukes, at least in this country, and I pleaded in vain.”
“Naturally, madame; his Grace had his duty as a good subject.”
“Doubtless,” said the Duchess; “but there have been occasions in history, they assure me, when good subjects have been none the less nice husbands. Monsieur can still follow me?”
Count Victor smiled and bowed again, and wished to heaven her Grace the Duchess had a little more of the gift of expedition. He had come looking for a sword and found a sermon.
“I know I weary you,” she went on complacently. “I was about to say that while the Duke desires to do his duty, even at the risk of breaking his wife's heart, it was obvious to me he was all the time sorry to have to do it, and when we heard that our Frenchman had escaped I, take my word for it, was not the only one relieved.”
“I do not wonder, madame,” said Montaiglon, “that the subject in this case should capitulate to—to—to the—”