# The Indiscretion of the Duchess/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII.
Heard Through the Door.
WENTY minutes' walking brought me to the wood which lay between the road and the convent. I pressed on; soon the wood ceased and I found myself on the outskirts of a paddock of rough grass, where a couple of cows and half a dozen goats were pasturing; a row of stunted apple trees ran along one side of the paddock, and opposite me rose the white walls of the convent; while on my left was the burying-ground with its arched gateway, inscribed “Mors janua vitæ.” I crossed the grass and rang a bell, that clanged again and again in echo. Nobody came. I pulled a second time and more violently. After some further delay the door was cautiously opened a little way, and a young woman looked out. She was a round-faced, red-cheeked, fresh creature, arrayed in a large close-fitting white cap, a big white collar over her shoulders, and a black gown. When she saw me, she uttered an exclamation of alarm, and pushed the door to again. Just in time I inserted my foot between door and doorpost.
“I beg your pardon,” said I politely, “but you evidently misunderstand me. I wish to enter.”
​She peered at me through the two-inch gap my timely foot had preserved.
“But it is impossible,” she objected. “Our rules do not allow it. Indeed, I may not talk to you. I beg of you to move your foot.”
“But then you would shut the door.”
She could not deny it.
“I mean no harm,” I protested.
“‘The guile of the wicked is infinite,’” remarked the little nun.
“I want to see the Mother Superior,” said I. “Will you take my name to her?”
I heard another step in the passage. The door was flung wide open, and a stout and stately old lady faced me, a frown on her brow.
“Madame,” said I, “until you hear my errand you will think me an ill-mannered fellow.”
“What is your business, sir?”
“It is for your ear alone, madame.”
“You can’t come in here,” said she decisively.
For a moment I was at a loss. Then the simplest solution in the world occurred to me.
“But you can come out, madame,” I suggested.
She looked at me doubtfully for a minute. Then she stepped out, shutting the door carefully behind her. I caught a glimpse of the little nun’s face, and thought there was a look of disappointment on it. The old lady and I began to walk along the path that led to the burying-ground.
“I do not know,” said I, “whether you have heard of me. My name is Aycon.”
“I thought so. Mr. Aycon, I must tell you ​that you are very much to blame. You have led this innocent, though thoughtless, child into most deplorable conduct.”
(“Well done, little duchess!” said I to myself; but of course I was not going to betray her.)
“I deeply regret my thoughtlessness,” said I earnestly. “I would, however, observe that the present position of the duchess is not due to my—shall we say misconduct?—but to that of her husband. I did not invite——”
“Don’t mention her name!” interrupted the Mother Superior in horror.
We had reached the arched gateway; and there appeared standing within it a figure most charmingly inappropriate to a graveyard—the duchess herself, looking as fresh as a daisy, and as happy as a child with a new toy. She ran to me, holding out both hands and crying:
“Ah, my dear, dear Mr. Aycon, you are the most delightful man alive! You come at the very moment I want you.”
“Be sober, my child, be sober!” murmured the old lady.
“But I want to hear,” expostulated the duchess. “Do you know anything, Mr. Aycon? What has been happening up at the house? What has the duke done?”
As the duchess poured out her questions, we passed through the gate; the ladies sat down on a stone bench just inside, and I, standing, told my story. The duchess was amused to hear of old Jean’s chase of her; but she showed no astonishment till I told her that Marie Del​hasse was at the hotel in Avranches, and had declined to go further on her journey to-day.
“At the hotel? Then you’ve seen her?” she burst out. “What is she like?”
“She is most extremely handsome,” said I. “Moreover, I am inclined to like her.”
The Mother Superior opened her lips—to reprove me, no doubt; but the duchess was too quick.
“Oh, you like her? Perhaps you’re going to desert me and go over to her?” she cried in indignation, that was, I think, for the most part feigned. Certainly the duchess did not look very alarmed. But in regard to what she said, the old lady was bound to have a word.
“What is Mr. Aycon to you, my child?” said she solemnly. “He is nothing—nothing at all to you, my child.”
“Well, I want him to be less than nothing to Mlle. Delhasse,” said the duchess, with a pout for her protector and a glance for me.
“Mlle. Delhasse is very angry with me just now,” said I.
“Oh, why?” asked the duchess eagerly.
“Because she gathered that I thought she ought to wait for an invitation from you, before she went to your house.”
“She should wait till the Day of Judgment!” cried the duchess.
“That would not matter,” observed the Mother Superior dryly.
Suddenly, without pretext or excuse, the duchess turned and walked very quickly—nay, she almost ran—away along the path that en​circled the group of graves. Her eye had bidden me, and I followed no less briskly. I heard a despairing sigh from the poor old lady, but she had no chance of overtaking us. The audacious movement was successful.
“Now we can talk,” said the duchess.
And talk she did, for she threw at me the startling assertion:
“I believe you’re falling in love with Mlle. Delhasse. If you do, I’ll never speak to you again!”
“If I do,” said I, “I shall probably accept that among the other disadvantages of the entanglement.”
“That’s very rude,” observed the duchess.
“Nothing with an ‘if’ in it is rude,” said I speciously.
“Men must be always in love with somebody,” said she resentfully.
“It certainly approaches a necessity,” I assented.
The duchess glanced at me. Perhaps I had glanced at her; I hope not.
“Oh, well,” said she, “hadn’t we better talk business?”
“Infinitely better,” said I; and I meant it.
“What am I to do?” she asked, with a return to her more friendly manner.
“Nothing,” said I.
It is generally the safest advice—to women at all events.
“You are content with the position? You like being at the hotel perhaps?”
“Should I not be hard to please, if I didn’t?”
​“I know you are trying to annoy me, but you shan’t. Mr. Aycon, suppose my husband comes over to Avranches, and sees you?”
“I have thought of that.”
“Well, what have you decided?”
“Not to think about it till it happens. But won’t he be thinking more about you than me?”
“He won’t do anything about me,” she said. “In the first place, he will want no scandal. In the second, he does not want me. But he will come over to see her.”
“Her” was, of course, Marie Delhasse. The duchess assigned to her the sinister distinction of the simple pronoun.
“Surely he will take means to get you to go back?” I exclaimed.
“If he could have caught me before I got here, he would have been glad. Now he will wait; for if he came here and claimed me, what he proposed to do would become known.”
There seemed reason in this; the duchess calculated shrewdly.
“In fact,” said I, “I had better go back to the hotel.”
“That does not seem to vex you much.”
“Well, I can’t stay here, can I?” said I, looking round at the nunnery. “It would be irregular, you know.”
“You might go to another hotel,” suggested she.
“It is most important that I should watch what is going on at my present hotel,” said I gravely; for I did not wish to move.
“You are the most——” began the duchess.
​But this bit of character-reading was lost. Slow but sure, the Mother Superior was at our elbows.
“Adieu, Mr. Aycon,” said she.
I felt sure that she must manage the nuns admirably.
“Adieu!” said I, as though there was nothing else to be said.
“Adieu!” said the duchess, as though she would have liked to say something else.
And all in a moment I was through the gateway and crossing the paddock. But the duchess ran to the gate, crying:
“Mind you come again to-morrow!”
My expedition consumed nearly two hours; and one o’clock struck from the tower of the church as I slowly climbed the hill, feeling (I must admit it) that the rest of the day would probably be rather dull. Just as I reached the top, however, I came plump on Mlle. Delhasse, who appeared to be taking a walk. She bowed to me slightly and coldly. Glad that she was so distant (for I did not like her looks), I returned her salute, and pursued my way to the hotel. In the porch of it stood the waiter—my friend who had taken such an obliging view of my movements the night before. Directly he saw me, he came out into the road to meet me.
“Are you acquainted with the ladies who have rooms on the first floor?” he asked with an air of mystery.
“I met them here for the first time,” said I.
I believe he doubted me; perhaps waiters are bred to suspicion by the things they see.
​“Ah!” said he, “then it does not interest you to know that a gentleman has been to see the young lady?”
I took out ten francs.
“Yes, it does,” said I, handing him the money. “Who was it?”
“The Duke of Saint-Maclou,” he whispered mysteriously.
“Is he gone?” I asked in some alarm. I had no wish to encounter him.
“This half-hour, sir.”
“Did he see both the ladies?”
“No; only the young lady. Madame went out immediately on his arrival, and is not yet returned.”
“And mademoiselle?”
“She is in her room.”
Thinking I had not got much, save good will, for my ten francs—for he told me nothing but what I had expected to hear—I was about to pass on, when he added, in a tone which seemed more significant than the question demanded:
“Are you going up to your room, sir?”
“I am,” said I.
“Permit me to show you the way,” he said—though his escort seemed to me very unnecessary.
He mounted before me. We reached the first floor. Opposite to us, not three yards away, was the door of the sitting-room which I knew to be occupied by the Delhasses.
“Go on,” said I.
“In a moment, sir,” he said.
​Then he held up his hand in the attitude of a man who listens.
“One should not listen,” he whispered, apologetically; “but it is so strange. I thought that if you knew the lady—— Hark!”
I knew that we ought not to listen. But the mystery of the fellow’s manner and the concern of his air constrained me, and I too paused, listening.
From behind the door there came to our strained attentive ears the sound of a woman sobbing. I sought the waiter’s eyes; they were already bent on me. Again the sad sounds came—low, swift, and convulsive. It went to my heart to hear them. I did not know what to do. To go on upstairs to my own room and mind my own business seemed the simple thing—simple, easy, and proper. But my feet were glued to the boards. I could not go, with that sound beating on my ears: I should hear it all the day. I glanced again at the waiter. He was a kind-looking fellow, and I saw the tears standing in his eyes.
“And mademoiselle is so beautiful!” he whispered.
“What the devil business is it of yours?” said I, in a low but fierce tone.
“None,” said he. “I am content to leave it to you, sir;” and without more he turned and went downstairs.
It was all very well to leave it to me; but what—failing that simple, easy, proper, and impossible course of action which I have indicated—was I to do?
​Well, what I did was this: I went to the door of the room and knocked softly. There was no answer. The sobs continued. I had been a brute to this girl in the morning; I thought of that as I stood outside.
“My God! what’s the matter with her?” I whispered.
And then I opened the door softly.
Marie Delhasse sat in a chair, her head resting in her hands and her hands on the table; and her body was shaken with her weeping.
And on the table, hard by her bowed golden head, there lay a square leathern box. I stood on the threshold and looked at her.
The rest of the day did not now seem likely to be dull; but it might prove to have in store for me more difficult tasks than the enduring of a little dullness.