Page:Hope-indiscretions of duchess.djvu/183

Rh smile, a cunning and—if my opinion be asked—loathsome smile; and she caressed the lapel of his coat with her hand. And the duke, who was smoking, smoked on, so that the smoke blew in her face, and she coughed and choked: whereat the duke also smiled. He set the right value on his instrument, and took pleasure in showing how he despised her.

“My dear, dear duke, I have such news for you—such news?” she said, ignoring, as perforce she must, his rudeness. “Come in here, and leave that man.”

At this the duke suddenly bent forward, his scornful, insolent toleration giving place to interest.

“News?” he cried, and he drew her toward the door to which she had been going, neither of them paying any more attention to me. And the door closed upon them.

The duke had not needed Bontet’s rousing. I did not need Bontet to tell me that the coast was clear. With a last alert glance at the door, I trod softly across the landing and reached the stairs by which Mlle. Delhasse had descended. Gently I mounted, and on reaching the top of the flight found a door directly facing me. I turned the handle, but the door was locked. I rattled the handle cautiously—and then again, and again. And presently I heard a light, timid, hesitating step inside; and through the door came, in the voice of Marie Delhasse:

“Who’s there?”

And I answered at once, boldly, but in a low voice: