She paused for breath, and shot a look at Avon out of the corners of her eyes. He was quite unperturbed; a faint smile hovered over his thin lips, and he regarded his sister with an air of cynical amusement. “I find your conversation somewhat difficult to follow, my dear Fanny,” he said. “Pray enlighten me.”
Lady Fanny said shrewdly: “Indeed, and I think you follow me very well, Justin.”
“But I don’t,” Léonie said. “Who deserves that Juliana should be cold? It is not the poor nobody?”
“Of course not!” replied her ladyship impatiently. She seemed strangely loth to explain herself. Léonie glanced inquiringly at the Duke.
He had opened his snuff-box again, and held a pinch to one nostril before he spoke. “I apprehend, my love, that Fanny is referring to your son.”
A blank look came into Léonie’s face. “Dominique? But — ” She stopped and looked at Fanny. “No,” she said flatly.
Lady Fanny was hardly prepared for anything so downright. “Lord, my dear, what can you mean?”
“I do not at all want Dominique to marry Juliana,” Léonie explained.
“Perhaps,” said Lady Fanny, sitting very erect in her chair, “you will be good enough to explain what that signifies.”
“I am sorry if I seemed rude,” Léonie apologized. “Did I, Monseigneur?”
“Very,” he answered, shutting his snuff-box with an expert flick of the finger, “But, unlike Fanny, beautifully frank.”
“Well, I am sorry,” she repeated. “It is not that I do not like Juliana, but I do not think it would amuse Dominic to marry her.”