"Why, this is not your carriage! What has become of that dark blue berlin drawn by two handsome gray horses that you placed at our disposal yesterday morning?" "Under the circumstances I feel no hesitation about confessing a little detail of domestic economy to you, my dear countess," replied the duke, with touching _naïveté_. "To save my grays, for which I was obliged to pay a good round sum, I assure you, I always hire a carriage in the evening. It is very much more economical than to risk one's own turnout at night." "And you are perfectly right, my dear duke," the princess hastened to say, fearing another shaft of ridicule from her niece. M. de Riancourt's footman was in attendance. He opened the door of the antiquated vehicle. The princess, assisted by the duke, quickly entered it, but as that gentleman offered his hand to the young widow for the same purpose, the petulant beauty paused with the tip of her white satin slipper lightly poised on the carriage step, and said, with an air of the deepest apprehension: "Do examine every nook and corner of the carriage carefully, aunt, I beseech you, before I get in." "But why, my dear?" inquired the princess, naïvely. "What is the necessity of this precaution?" "I am afraid some red-headed girl or some stout shopkeeper may have been left in a corner, as it is in vehicles of this description that worthy shopkeepers drive about all day with their families when they treat themselves to an outing." Laughing heartily, the young widow sprang into the carriage. As she seated herself, the princess said to her, in a low tone, but with a deeply pained air: "Really, Fedora, I do not understand you. You are strangely sarcastic toward M. de Riancourt. What can be your object?" "I want to cure him of his shameful stinginess. How could I better manifest my interest in him?" Just then the duke took the seat opposite them. He seemed to endure with Christian meekness the ridicule of this young woman who possessed such magnificent diamonds, as well as all sorts of gold and silver mines; but the furtive glance he bestowed on her now and then, and a certain contraction of his thin lips, indicated that a sullen rage was rankling in his heart. The footman having asked for orders, M. de Riancourt replied: "To the Hôtel Saint-Ramon." "Pardon me, M. le duc," answered the footman, "but I don't know where the Hôtel Saint-Ramon is." "At the end of the Cours la Reine," responded M. de Riancourt. "Does M. le duc mean that large house on which they have been working several years?" "Yes." The footman closed the door, and repeated the instructions to the coachman who applied the whip vigorously to his bony steeds, and the landau started in the direction of the Cours la Reine. CHAPTER XVII. THE HOTEL SAINT-RAMON.