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These two women who had suddenly crossed my path, and their relations to the pale puffy-cheeked man at the little château, might well produce results more startling than had seemed to be offered even by such a freak as the original expedition undertaken by Gustave de Berensac and me. And now Gustave had fallen away and I was left to face the thing alone. For face it I must.
But, then discretion has two meanings whereof the one is "Do it not," and the other "Tell it not." Considering of this ambiguity, I acquitted the duchess of hypocrisy. At ten o'clock the next morning we got rid of my dear friend Gustave de Berensac.
Yet, when I had been married to Marie Delhasse some six months, I received a letter from my good friend Gustave de Berensac, informing me of his approaching union with Mme. de Saint-Maclou. And, if I might judge from Gustave's letter, he repudiated utterly the idea which I have ventured to suggest concerning the duchess.
Mad or not, in any case after three minutes I thought no more of my good friend Gustave de Berensac, nor of aught else, save the inn outside Pontorson, just where the old road used to turn toward Mont St. Michel. To that goal I pressed on, forgetting my weariness and my pain.
"When it happens," said I, "on my honor, I will write and tell you." The duchess, with a toss of her head which meant "Well, I'm right and you're wrong," rose from her seat. "I must take poor Armand home," said she. "M. de Berensac is going with me. Will you accompany us?" "If you will give me a delay of one hour, I will most willingly." "What have you to do in that hour, Mr. Aycon?"
I nodded and walked forward to meet them; for by now I knew the man, yes, and the woman, though she wore a veil. And it was too late to stop their approach. Uncovering my head, I stepped up to them, and they stopped in surprise at seeing me. For the pair were Gustave de Berensac and the duchess. The little duchess threw up her veil.
I had planned it all so delightfully!" "If you had told the truth " began Gustave. "I should not have had a preacher to supper," said the duchess sharply; then she fell to laughing again. "Is Mlle. de Berensac irrecoverable?" I suggested. "Why, yes. She has gone to take her turn of attendance on your rich old aunt, Gustave."
Gustave de Berensac had not spoken: and he now came silently to my side, and he and I followed a pace or two behind the duchess. The servant had halted ten or fifteen yards away. Marie had reached where the duke lay and stood now close by him, her arms at her side and her head bowed. The duchess walked up to her husband and, kneeling beside him, lifted the handkerchief from his face.
Then I said to Gustave de Berensac, laying my hand on his shoulder: "When I am married, Gustave, you will not meet my mother-in-law in my house;" and I left Gustave staring in an amazement not unnatural to his ignorance. And I allowed myself to be directed by the servant girl to where the duchess sat.
Yet even the beginning had a flavor of the unusual about it, strong enough to startle a man so used to a humdrum life and so unversed in anything out of the common as I. Here, then, is the beginning: One morning, as I sat smoking my after-breakfast cigar in my rooms in St. James' Street, my friend Gustave de Berensac rushed in.
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