"Not the Duchesse de Melun!" I exclaimed, before I stopped to think.
"Yes, that's the name," said her ladyship, twisting round to look up at me, as I wound her back hair in curling-pins. "What do you know about her?"
How I wished that I knew nothing—and that I had n't spoken!
The name had popped out, because the Duchesse de Melun is the only American-born duchess of my acquaintance, and because I was hoping very hard that the duchess of the Chateau de Roquemartine might not be the Duchesse de Melun. What bad luck that the Roquemartines had selected that particular duchess for this particular house party, when they must know plenty, and could just as well have chosen another specimen!
"I have heard her name," I admitted, primly. And so I had, too often. "A friend of mine was—was with her, once."
"As her maid?"
"Not exactly."
"Another sort of servant, I suppose?" As her ladyship stated this as a fact, rather than asked it as a question, I ventured to refrain from answering. Fortunately she did n't notice the omission, as her thoughts had jumped to another subject. But mine were not so readily displaced. They remained fastened to the Duchesse de Melun; and while Lady Turnour talked, I was wondering whether I could successfully contrive to keep out of the duchess's way. She is quite intimate with Cousin Catherine; and I told myself that she was pretty sure already to have heard the truth about my
