Page:Hope-indiscretions of duchess.djvu/155

Rh to do or being anywhere that the laws of Nature rendered it possible she should be, was perhaps a disposition of mind of which I should have been by this time cured; yet I was surprised to find her standing in the doorway that led from Jean’s little bedroom dressed in a neat walking gown and a very smart hat, her hands clasped in the surprise which she shared with me and her eyes gleaming with an amused delight which found, I fear, no answer in my heavy bewildered gaze.

“I’m getting warm,” said I at first, but then I made an effort to rouse myself. “I was a bit hurt, you know,” I went on; “that little villain Pierre”

“Hurt!” cried the duchess, springing forward. “How? Oh, my dear Mr. Aycon, how pale you are!”

After that remark of the duchess’, I remember nothing which occurred for a long while. In fact, just as I had apprehended that I was awake, that the duchess was real, and that it was most remarkable to find her in Jean’s cottage, I fainted, and the duchess, the cottage, and everything else vanished from sight and mind.

When next I became part of the waking world I found myself on the sofa of the little room in the duke’s house which I was beginning to know so well. I felt very comfortable: my arm was neatly bandaged, I wore a clean shirt. Suzanne was spreading a meal on the table, and the duchess, in a charming morning gown, was smiling at me and humming a tune. The clock on the mantelpiece marked a quarter to eight.