Arsène Lupin | Page 6

is all very well for middle-class
people, but it's quite out of place for a duke!" cried Germaine.
Alfred came in, bearing the tea-tray, and set it on a little table near that
at which Sonia was sitting.
Germaine, who was feeling too important to sit still, was walking up
and down the room. Suddenly she stopped short, and pointing to a
silver statuette which stood on the piano, she said, "What's this? Why is
this statuette here?"
"Why, when we came in, it was on the cabinet, in its usual place," said
Sonia in some astonishment.
"Did you come into the hall while we were out in the garden, Alfred?"
said Germaine to the footman.
"No, miss," said Alfred.
"But some one must have come into it," Germaine persisted.
"I've not heard any one. I was in my pantry," said Alfred.
"It's very odd," said Germaine.
"It is odd," said Sonia. "Statuettes don't move about 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