“To the loving husband, you were about to say. La! you are too gallant, monsieur, I declare. And as a matter of fact the true explanation is less to my husband's credit and less flattering to me, for he had his own reasons.”
“One generally has,” reflected the Count aloud.
“Quite! and in his case they are very often mine. Dear Archie! Though he did not think I knew it, I saw clearly that he had his own reasons, as I say, to wish the Frenchman well out of the country. Now could you guess what these reasons were?”
Count Victor confessed with shame that it was beyond him.
“I will tell you. They were not his own interests, and they were not mine, that influenced him; I had not to think very hard to discover that they were the interests of the Chamberlain. I fancy his Grace knows that the less inquiry there is into this encounter the better for all concerned.”
“I daresay, Madame la Duchesse,” agreed Count Victor, “and yet the world speaks well of the Chamberlain, one hears.”
“Woe unto you when all men speak well of you!” quoted the Duchess sententiously.
“It only happens when the turf is in our teeth,” said the Count, “and then De mortuis is a motto our dear friends use more as an excuse than as a moral.”
“I do not like our Chamberlain, monsieur; I may frankly tell you so. I should not be surprised to learn that my husband knows a little more about him than I do, and I give you my word I know enough to consider him hateful.”
“These are most delicate considerations, Madame la Duchesse,” said the Count, vastly charmed by her manner but naturally desirous of the open air. Every step he heard in neighbouring lobbies, every slammed door, spoiled his attention to the lady's confidences, and he had an uneasy sense that she was not wholly unamused at his predicament, however much his friend.