say, Bert--?"

"Can't you let me alone?"

"Where's she going to?" I asked, for the lady was something of a
celebrity.

George jingled his money, smiled cruelly at poor Bertram, and answered
pleasantly:

"Nobody knows. By the way, Bert, I met a great man at her house the
other night--at least, about a month ago. Did you ever meet him--the
Duke of Strelsau?"

"Yes, I did," growled Bertram.

"An extremely accomplished man, I thought him."

It was not hard to see that George's references to the duke were
intended to aggravate poor Bertram's sufferings, so that I drew the
inference that the duke had distinguished Madame de Mauban by his
attentions. She was a widow, rich, handsome, and, according to repute,
ambitious. It was quite possible that she, as George put it, was flying
as high as a personage who was everything he could be, short of enjoying
strictly royal rank: for the duke was the son of the late King of
Ruritania by a second and morganatic marriage, and half-brother to the
new King. He had been his father's favourite, and it had occasioned
some unfavourable comment when he had been created a duke, with a title
derived from no less a city than the capital itself. His mother had been
of good, but not exalted, birth.