Nothing seemed more likely; I was bound to admit that.

“Get in, Mr. Aycon,” continued the duchess.  And then she suddenly began to talk English.  “I told him I shouldn’t stay in the house if Mlle. Delhasse came.  He didn’t believe me; well, he’ll see now.  I couldn’t stay, could I?  Why don’t you get in?”

Half dazed, I got in.  I offered no opinion on the question of Mlle. Delhasse:  to begin with, I knew very little about it; in the second place there seemed to me to be a more pressing question.

“Quick, Jean!” said the duchess.

And we lumbered on at a trot, Jean twisting his cheroot round and round, and grunting now and again.  The old man’s face said, plain as words.

“Yes, I shall get the sack; and you’ll be shot!”

I found my tongue.

“Was this what you wanted me for?” I asked.

“Of course,” said the duchess, speaking French again.

“But you can’t come with me!” I cried in unfeigned horror.

The duchess looked up; she fixed her eyes on me for a moment; her eyes grew round, her brows lifted.  Then her lips curved:  she blushed very red; and she burst into the merriest fit of laughter.

“Oh, dear!” laughed the duchess.  “Oh, what fun, Mr. Aycon!”

“It seems to me rather a serious matter,” I ventured to observe.  “Leaving out all question of—­of what’s correct, you know” (I became very apologetic at this point), “it’s just a little risky, isn’t it?”

Jean evidently thought so; he nodded solemnly over his cheroot.

The duchess still laughed; indeed, she was wiping her eyes with her handkerchief.

“What an opinion to have of me!” she gasped at last.  “I’m not coming with you, Mr. Aycon.”

I dare say my face showed relief:  I don’t know that I need be ashamed of that.  My change of expression, however, set the duchess a-laughing again.

“I never saw a man look so glad,” said she gayly.  Yet somewhere, lurking in the recesses of her tone—­or was it of her eyes?—­there was a little reproach, a little challenge.  And suddenly I felt less glad:  a change of feeling which I do not seek to defend.

“Then where are you going?” I asked in much curiosity.

“I am going,” said the duchess, assuming in a moment a most serious air, “into religious retirement for a few days.”

“Religious retirement?” I echoed in surprise.

“Are you thinking it’s not my métier?” she asked, her eyes gleaming again.

“But where?” I cried.

“Why, there, to be sure.”  And she pointed to where the square white convent stood on the edge of the bay, under the hill of Avranches.  “There, at the convent.  The Mother Superior is my friend, and will protect me.”

The duchess spoke as though the guillotine were being prepared for her.  I sat silent.  The situation was becoming rather too complicated for my understanding.  Unfortunately, however, it was to become more complicated still; for the duchess, turning to the English tongue again, laid a hand on my arm and said in her most coaxing tones: