But he recovered in a moment. “Lady Cynthia being, however, in Switzerland, there is no reason why I should not go to Normandy.”

“Oh, Normandy?”

“Precisely. It is there that the duchess——”

“Oho! The duchess?”

“Is residing in retirement in a small château, alone save for my sister’s society.”

“And a servant or two, I presume?”

“You are just right, a servant or two; for he is most stingy to her (though not, they say, to everybody), and gives her nothing when he is away.”

“Money is a temptation, you see.”

“Mon Dieu, to have none is a greater!” and Gustave shook his head solemnly.

“The duchess of what?” I asked patiently.

“You will have heard of her,” he said, with a proud smile. Evidently he thought that the lady was a trump card. “The Duchess of Saint-Maclou.”

I laid down my cigar, maintaining, however, a calm demeanor.

“Aha!” said Gustave. “You will come, my friend?”

I could not deny that Gustave had a right to his little triumph; for a year ago, when the duchess had visited England with her husband, I had received an invitation to meet her at the Embassy. Unhappily, the death of a relative (whom I had never seen) occurring the day before, I had been obliged to post off to Ireland, and pay proper respect by appearing at the funeral. When I returned the duchess had