I think His Lordship tried hard to persuade himself that the case was such, in order to try and make some small excuse for his conduct with regard to the Duchess. This, indeed, he hardly tried to conceal.

He was far from entertaining the same opinion of Monsieur Duroque and Mademoiselle Juliette, the valet and femme de chambre of the Duke and Duchess, which was held by the Countess. Indeed he represented that couple as the most valuable and trustworthy of their class, especially recommending Juliette to my notice. She and I would, it appeared, be the means of communication between the Duchess and himself in the way of verbal messages, notes or otherwise, and therefore it was highly desirable that I should cultivate the young woman's acquaintance.

"You have my full permission to fuck her, and make yourself as agreeable as possible. Then I can depend upon you both. There's nothing like that to ensure discretion in love matters," he added.

This, from the estimate I formed of her character and judging from her personal appearance, I considered I should not have much difficulty in doing.

My final instructions were not to fail in my attendance on my Lady and to report to him anything worthy of notice, particularly between her and the Duke.

This I faithfully promised to do, feeling pretty confident that I should notice nothing in that quarter, and mentally resolving that any other eccentricities of my Lady as developed in respect to myself should not be considered worthy of notice.

So far, so good. And when my services to Her Ladyship were concluded, little did he guess in what some of those services consisted, or with what pleasure they were given.

I was to attend His Lordship in his dressing-room as he would most likely require me.

Upon this I bowed and withdrew, and my Lady having a good deal of company to entertain at dinner, subsequently retired rather fatigued about eleven o'clock. I was at liberty to retire and repaired at once to my Lord's dressing-room. There I waited until nearly twelve when, making his appearance, he demanded if anyone had called there with a note for him.