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180 “You’ve been slinking in behind my back, have you?” she asked, but still with a grin.

“It would have been rude to force an entrance to your face,” I observed.

“And I suppose you’ve been making love to the girl?”

“At the proper time, madame,” said I, with much courtesy, “I shall no doubt ask you for an interview with regard to that matter. I shall omit no respect that you deserve.”

As I spoke, I stood on one side to let her pass. I cannot make up my mind whether her recent fury or her present good humor repelled me more.

“You’d have a fine fool for a wife,” said she, with a jerk of her thumb toward the room where the daughter was.

“I should be compensated by a very clever mother-in-law,” said I.

The old woman paused for an instant at the top of the stairs, and looked me up and down.

“Aye,” said she, “you men think yourselves mighty clever, but a woman gets the better of you all now and then.”

I was utterly puzzled by her evident exultation. The duke could not have consented to accept her society in place of her daughter’s; but I risked the impropriety and hazarded the suggestion to Mme. Delhasse. Her face curled in cunning wrinkles. She seemed to be about to speak, but then she shut her lips with a snap, and suspicion betrayed itself again in her eyes. She had a secret—a fresh secret—I could have sworn, and in her triumph she had