The Indiscretion of the Duchess Part 22

"And she? What says she to you?"

I looked up with a start, and met his searching wrathful gaze. I shook my head; his question was new to me--new and disturbing.

"I don't know," said I; and on that we sat in silence for many moments.

Then he rose abruptly and stood beside me.

"Mr. Aycon," he said, in the smoother tones in which he had begun our curious interview, "I came near a little while ago to doing a ruffianly thing, of a sort I am not wont to do. We must fight out our quarrel in the proper way. Have you any friends in the neighborhood?"

"I am quite unknown," I answered.

He thought for an instant, and then continued:

"There is a regiment quartered at Pontorson, and I have acquaintances among the officers. If agreeable to you, we will drive over there; we shall find gentlemen ready to a.s.sist us."

"You are determined to fight?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, with a snap of his lips. "Have we not matters enough and to spare to fight about?"

"I can't of course deny that you have a pretext."

"And I, Mr. Aycon, know that I have also a cause. Will this morning suit you?"

"It is hard on two now."

"Precisely. We have time for a little rest; then I will order the carriage and we will drive together to Pontorson."

"You mean that I should stay in your house?"

"If you will so far honor me. I wish to settle this affair at once, so as to be moving."

"I can but accept."

"Indeed you could hardly get back to Avranches, if, as I presume, you came on foot. Ah! you've never told me why you wished to see Jean;" and he turned a questioning look on me again, as he walked toward the door of the cottage.

"It was--" I began.

"Stay; you shall tell me in the house. Shall I lead the way? Ah, but you know it!" and he smiled grimly.

With a bow, I preceded him along the little path where I had once waited for the d.u.c.h.ess, and where Pierre, the new servant, had found me. No words pa.s.sed between us as we went. The duke advanced to the door and unlocked it. We went in, n.o.body was about, and we crossed the dimly lighted hall into the small room where supper had been laid for three (three who should have been four) on the night of my arrival. Meat, bread, and wine stood on the table now, and with a polite gesture the duke invited me to a repast.

I was tired and hungry, and I took a hunch of bread and poured out some wine.

"What keeps Jean, I wonder?" mused the duke, as he sat down. "Perhaps he has found her!" and a gleam of eager hope flashed from his eyes.

I made no comment--where was the profit in more sparring of words? I munched my bread and drank my wine, thinking, by a whimsical turn of thought, of Gustave de Berensac and his horror at the table laid for three. Soon I laid down my napkin, and the duke held out his cigarette case toward me:

"And now, Mr. Aycon, if I'm not keeping you up--"

"I do not feel sleepy," said I.

"It is the same for both of us," he reminded me, shrugging his shoulders.

"Well, then, if you are willing--of course you can refuse if you choose--I should like to hear what brought you to Jean's quarters on foot from Avranches in the middle of the night."

"You shall hear. I did not desire to meet you, if I could avoid it, and therefore I sought old Jean, with the intention of making him a messenger to you."

"For what purpose?"

"To restore to you something which has been left on my hands and to which you have a better right than I."

"Pray, what is that?" he asked, evidently puzzled. The truth never crossed his mind.

"This," said I; and I took the red leathern box out of my pocket, and set it down on the table in front of the duke. And I put my cigarette between my lips and leaned back in my chair.

CHAPTER XIII.

A Timely Truce.

I think that at first the Duke of Saint-Maclou could not, as the old saying goes, believe his eyes. He sat looking from me to the red box, and from the red box back to my face. Then he stretched out a slow, wavering hand and drew the box nearer to him till it rested in the circle of his spread-out arm and directly under his poring gaze. He seemed to shrink from opening it; but at last he pressed the spring with a covert timid movement of his finger, and the lid, springing open, revealed the Cardinal's Necklace.

It seemed to be more brilliant than I had ever seen it, in the light of the lamp that stood on the table by us; and the duke looked at it as a magician might at the amulet which had failed him, or a warrior at the talisman that had proved impotent. And I, moved to a sudden anger with him for tempting the girl with such a bribe, said bitterly and scornfully, with fresh indignation rising in me:

"It was a high bid! Strange that you could not buy her with it!"

He paid no visible heed to my taunt; and his tone was dull, bewildered, and heavy as, holding the box still in his curved arm, he asked slowly:

"Did she give it to you to give to me?"

"She gave it to me to give to your wife." He looked up with a start. "But your wife would not take it of her. And when I returned from my errand she was gone--where I know not. So I decided to send it back to you."

He did not follow, or took very little interest in my brief history. He did not even reiterate his belief that I knew Marie's whereabouts. His mind was fixed on another point.

"How did you know she had it?" he asked.

"I found her with it on the table before her--"

"You found her?"

"Yes; I went into her sitting room and found her as I say; and she was sobbing; and I got from her the story of it."

"She told you that?"

"Yes; and she feared to send it back, lest you should come and overbear her resistance. I supposed you had frightened her. But neither would she keep it--"

"You bade her not," he put in, in a quick low tone.