Arsène Lupin | Page 6

of themselves."
All of them stared at the statuette as if they expected it to move again forthwith, under their very eyes. Then Alfred put it back in its usual place on one of the cabinets, and went out of the room.
Sonia poured out the tea; and over it they babbled about the coming marriage, the frocks they would wear at it, and the presents Germaine had already received. That reminded her to ask Sonia if any one had yet telephoned from her father's house in Paris; and Sonia said that no one had.
"That's very annoying," said Germaine. "It shows that nobody has sent me a present to-day."
Pouting, she shrugged her shoulders with an air of a spoiled child, which sat but poorly on a well-developed young woman of twenty- three.
"It's Sunday. The shops don't deliver things on Sunday," said Sonia gently.
But Germaine still pouted like a spoiled child.
"Isn't your beautiful Duke coming to have tea with us?" said Jeanne a little anxiously.
"Oh, yes; I'm expecting him at half-past four. He had to go for a ride with the two Du Buits. They're coming to tea here, too," said Germaine.
"Gone for a ride with the two Du Buits? But when?" cried Marie quickly.
"This afternoon."
"He can't be," said Marie. "My brother went to the Du Buits' house after lunch, to see Andre and Georges. They went for a drive this morning, and won't be back till late to-night."
"Well, but--but why did the Duke tell me so?" said Germaine, knitting her brow with a puzzled air.
"If I were you, I should inquire into this thoroughly. Dukes--well, we know what dukes are--it will be just as well to keep an eye on him," said Jeanne maliciously.
Germaine flushed quickly; and her eyes flashed. "Thank you. I have every confidence in Jacques. I am absolutely sure of him," she said angrily.
"Oh, well--if you're sure, it's all right," said Jeanne.
The ringing of the telephone-bell made a fortunate diversion.
Germaine rushed to it, clapped the receiver to her ear, and cried: "Hello, is that you, Pierre? . . . Oh, it's Victoire, is it? . . . Ah, some presents have come, have they? . . . Well, well, what are they? . . . What! a paper-knife--another paper-knife! . . . Another Louis XVI. inkstand--oh, bother! . . . Who are they from? . . . Oh, from the Countess Rudolph and the Baron de Valery." Her voice rose high, thrilling with pride.
Then she turned her face to her friends, with the receiver still at her ear, and cried: "Oh, girls, a pearl necklace too! A large one! The pearls are big ones!"
"How jolly!" said Marie.
"Who sent it?" said Germaine, turning to the telephone again. "Oh, a friend of papa's," she added in a tone of disappointment. "Never mind, after all it's a pearl necklace. You'll be sure and lock the doors carefully, Victoire, won't you? And lock up the necklace in the secret cupboard. . . . Yes; thanks very much, Victoire. I shall see you to-morrow."
She hung up the receiver, and came away from the telephone frowning.
"It's preposterous!" she said pettishly. "Papa's friends and relations give me marvellous presents, and all the swells send me paper-knives. It's all Jacques' fault. He's above all this kind of thing. The Faubourg Saint-Germain hardly knows that we're engaged."
"He doesn't go about advertising it," said Jeanne, smiling.
"You're joking, but all the same what you say is true," said Germaine. "That's exactly what his cousin Madame de Relzieres said to me the other day at the At Home she gave in my honour--wasn't it, Sonia?" And she walked to the window, and, turning her back on them, stared out of it.
"She HAS got her mouth full of that At Home," said Jeanne to Marie in a low voice.
There was an awkward silence. Marie broke it:
"Speaking of Madame de Relzieres, do you know that she is on pins and needles with anxiety? Her son is fighting a duel to-day," she said.
"With whom?" said Sonia.
"No one knows. She got hold of a letter from the seconds," said Marie.
"My mind is quite at rest about Relzieres," said Germaine. "He's a first-class swordsman. No one could beat him."
Sonia did not seem to share her freedom from anxiety. Her forehead was puckered in little lines of perplexity, as if she were puzzling out some problem; and there was a look of something very like fear in her gentle eyes.
"Wasn't Relzieres a great friend of your fiance at one time?" said Jeanne.
"A great friend? I should think he was," said Germaine. "Why, it was through Relzieres that we got to know Jacques."
"Where was that?" said Marie.
"Here--in this very chateau," said Germaine.
"Actually in his own house?" said Marie, in some surprise.
"Yes; actually here. Isn't life funny?" said Germaine. "If, a few months after his father's death, Jacques had