Never had I seen her in such an expansive mood, not even when she gave me the blouse.  Instead of the cross words I had braced myself to expect, she was almost friendly.  She had felt a fool, she said, not being able to dress for dinner, but then no one else could touch her, for jewels; and didn’t every one just stare, at the table, though, of course, she hadn’t put on her tiara, as that wouldn’t have been suitable with a blouse and short skirt!  Sir Samuel’s stepson had been quite nasty and superior about the jewels, when he got at her, afterward, and she believed would have been rude if he’d dared, but luckily he didn’t know her well enough for that; and he’d better be careful how far he went, or he’d find things very different from what they’d been with him, since his mother married Sir Samuel.  As if men knew when women ought to wear their jewels, and when not!  But he was green with jealousy of the things his stepfather had given her; wanted everything himself.

She went on to describe the other members of the house party, and mouthed their titles with delight, though she had only her own maid to impress.  Everyone had a title, it seemed, except Bertie, and the American girl he wanted to marry, Miss Nelson, a sister of the young marquise.  Some of the titles were very high ones, too.  There were princes and princesses, and dukes and duchesses all over the place, mostly French and Italian, though one of the duchesses was American, like the marquise and her sister.

“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 hadn’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 didn’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