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At the sound of the duchesse's voice Madame de Sevigne again turned, with the same charming smile and the quick impulsiveness of movement common to her. During her long monologue she had remained standing; but she left the window now to regain her seat amid the cushions of the window.
Another annoyance had been the over-zealous courtesy of some of the upper middle-class. Only yesterday, in the very midst of the dust and under the burning noon sun, they had all been forced to alight, to receive the homage tendered the duchesse, of some thirty women and as many men. Each one of the sixty must, of course, kiss the duchesse's hand.
The misfortunes you speak of have indeed worked a change in you, for you will now, perhaps, answer me, 'I accept." The duchesse's look and smile soon changed at this conclusion, and she no longer attempted to act a false part. "Speak, dearest, what do you want?" "I must first explain to you " "Do so unhesitatingly."
She spoke to me of our national amusements. "You are not," said she, "so fond of dancing as we are." "We have not the same exalted example to be at once our motive and our model," said I, in allusion to the duchesse's well known attachment to that accomplishment. The Duchesse D'A came up as I said this, and the conversation flowed on evenly enough till the 's whist party was formed.
You know the rest: I was discovered by the Duc and by the agents of police in the cabinet in which the Duchesse's jewels were kept. The key that admitted me into the cabinet was found in my possession." De Mauleon's voice here faltered, and he covered his face with a convulsive hand. Almost in the same breath he recovered from visible sign of emotion, and went on with a half laugh.
"They think that I am as great a fool as they are, with their talk of Mme. la Duchesse's journey north, directly after the wedding!
I reached forward and took the Duchesse's hand and kissed it, and she went on: "Alatheé is my godchild, one of my names is Alatheé. The poor little one, she adored her father, in all those first years.
There was no meaning in it of the kind Madame de Clerté would have instilled into the tone. "Yes she is wonderfully diligent it is impossible to dislodge her for a moment from her work. She thinks me a poor creature I expect." The Duchesse's eyes, half closed now, were watching me keenly . "Why should she think that, Nicholas you can't after all fight." "No but ."
The Duchesse's widowed aunt was made happy by a pension of six thousand livres a year; and her son-in-law, de Guiche, in addition to his dukedom, was rewarded further for his fortunate nuptials by valuable sinecure offices at Court.
His mouth felt dry and his head hot, and he did not know on which foot he could stand with the least possible discomfort, and how he could contrive to hide from Madame la Duchesse's piercing eyes that very obvious patch in the right knee of his breeches. "Madame la Duchesse will forgive me, I hope," he stammered painfully. But already Madame's kind old face had shed its mask of raillery.
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