The Indiscretion of the Duchess Part 9

"Was this what you wanted me for?" I asked.

"Of course," said the d.u.c.h.ess, speaking French again.

"But you can't come with me!" I cried in unfeigned horror.

The d.u.c.h.ess looked up; she fixed her eyes on me for a moment; her eyes grew round, her brows lifted. Then her lips curved: she blushed very red; and she burst into the merriest fit of laughter.

"Oh, dear!" laughed the d.u.c.h.ess. "Oh, what fun, Mr. Aycon!"

"It seems to me rather a serious matter," I ventured to observe. "Leaving out all question of--of what's correct, you know" (I became very apologetic at this point), "it's just a little risky, isn't it?"

Jean evidently thought so; he nodded solemnly over his cheroot.

The d.u.c.h.ess still laughed; indeed, she was wiping her eyes with her handkerchief.

"What an opinion to have of me!" she gasped at last. "I'm not coming with you, Mr. Aycon."

I dare say my face showed relief: I don't know that I need be ashamed of that. My change of expression, however, set the d.u.c.h.ess a-laughing again.

"I never saw a man look so glad," said she gayly. Yet somewhere, lurking in the recesses of her tone--or was it of her eyes?--there was a little reproach, a little challenge. And suddenly I felt less glad: a change of feeling which I do not seek to defend.

"Then where are you going?" I asked in much curiosity.

"I am going," said the d.u.c.h.ess, a.s.suming in a moment a most serious air, "into religious retirement for a few days."

"Religious retirement?" I echoed in surprise.

"Are you thinking it's not my _metier_?" she asked, her eyes gleaming again.

"But where?" I cried.

"Why, there, to be sure." And she pointed to where the square white convent stood on the edge of the bay, under the hill of Avranches. "There, at the convent. The Mother Superior is my friend, and will protect me."

The d.u.c.h.ess spoke as though the guillotine were being prepared for her. I sat silent. The situation was becoming rather too complicated for my understanding. Unfortunately, however, it was to become more complicated still; for the d.u.c.h.ess, turning to the English tongue again, laid a hand on my arm and said in her most coaxing tones:

"And you, my dear Mr. Aycon, are going to stay a few days in Avranches."

"Not an hour!" would have expressed the resolve of my intellect. But we are not all intellect; and what I actually said was:

"What for?"

"In case," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "I want you, Mr. Aycon."

"I will stay," said I, nodding, "just a few days at Avranches."

We were within half a mile of that town. The convent gleamed white in the moonlight about three hundred yards to the left. The d.u.c.h.ess took her little bag, jumped lightly down, kissed her hand to me, and walked off.

Jean had made no comment at all--the d.u.c.h.ess' household was hard to surprise. I could make none. And we drove in silence into Avranches.

When there before with Gustave, I had put up at a small inn at the foot of the hill. Now I drove up to the summit and stopped before the princ.i.p.al hotel. A waiter ran out, cast a curious glance at my conveyance, and lifted my luggage down.

"Let me know if you get into any trouble for being late," said I to Jean, giving him another five francs.

He nodded and drove off, still chewing the stump of his cheroot.

"Can I have a room?" I asked, turning to the waiter.

"Certainly, sir," said he, catching up my bag in his hand.

"I am just come," said I, "from Mont St. Michel."

A curious expression spread over the waiter's face. I fancy he knew old Jean and the cart by sight; but he spread out his hands and smiled.

"Monsieur," said he with the incomparable courtesy of the French nation, "has come from wherever monsieur pleases."

"That," said I, giving him a trifle, "is an excellent understanding."

Then I walked into the _salle-a-manger_, and almost into the arms of an extraordinarily handsome girl who was standing just inside the door.

"This is really an eventful day," I thought to myself.

CHAPTER VI.

A Hint of Something Serious.

Occurrences such as this induce in a man of imagination a sense of sudden shy intimacy. The physical encounter seems to typify and foreshadow some intermingling of destiny. This occurs with peculiar force when the lady is as beautiful as was the girl I saw before me.

"I beg your pardon, madame," said I, with a whirl of my hat.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the lady, with an inclination of her head.

"One is so careless in entering rooms hurriedly," I observed.

"Oh, but it is stupid to stand just by the door!" insisted the lady.

Conscious that she was scanning my appearance, I could but return the compliment. She was very tall, almost as tall as I was myself; you would choose to call her stately, rather than slender. She was very fair, with large lazy blue eyes and a lazy smile to match. In all respects she was the greatest contrast to the d.u.c.h.ess of Saint-Maclou.

"You were about to pa.s.s out?" said I, holding the door.

She bowed; but at the moment another lady--elderly, rather stout, and, to speak it plainly, of homely and unattractive aspect--whom I had not hitherto perceived, called from a table at the other end of the room where she was sitting:

"We ought to start early to-morrow."

The younger lady turned her head slowly toward the speaker.