Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 Read Online Free

dancer.”
    “Then you must
believe that, if you will.”
    “It would
explain, too, why, as you said when we first met, that although you wish to be
married you fear that you may soon be left on the shelf.”
    “I am not plain!”
she exclaimed with a flash of anger. “I am accounted the most beautiful—I mean,
very good looking. The papers are always publishing photographs of me. That is
my reason for not unmasking. You would be sure to recognize me if I did.”
    He was amused by
her youthful conceit, that her features were so widely publicized that he would
be bound to know her at the sight of them: and, having deliberately nettled her
into asserting that she was a beauty, he did not hold it against her. With a
good-humoured shrug, he said:
    “Very well,
then. If you will not unmask, at least tell me something of yourself. Although
you speak French very fluently, I am sure you are not French by birth. What is
your nationality?”
    “I probably have
as much Bavarian blood as you have Russian,” she replied a little cryptically. “But
my mother was a Belgian.”
    “And where do
you live?”
    “In various
places on the Continent. I have relatives in Munich, with whom I spend a good
part of my time: but during the past two years I have been allowed to travel
quite a lot in order to complete my education. Tell me more about the Vend ô me
conspiracy.”
    “We have ample
time for that. Tell me first what you have made of your life so far?”
    She gave him a
puzzled look. “What a strange question! How can a girl like myself make
anything of her life? What she does, or may not do, is dictated for her by her
elders.”
    “That does not
prevent her having her own ambitions.”
    “True! Mine is
to make a suitable marriage, in which I may also find love—so that through my
own happiness I may be the better able to bring happiness to others.”
    His shrewd eyes
regarded her with curiosity for a moment: then he remarked, “You said that
almost as though you were repeating a well-learned lesson.”
    “Perhaps,
unconsciously, I was.” She gave a cynical little laugh. “My life so far has
consisted of little else than lessons. But the part about hoping for love was
my own idea.”
    It occurred to
him that she was probably a great heiress, who might later be called on to
watch over the welfare of many thousands of workpeople in the industries that
her money controlled. Or, in view of her mixed parentage, she might be the
daughter of an American millionaire and, perhaps, had been brought up in Europe
with the idea of her marrying into the higher aristocracy, where she would have
to spend much of her time supervising charities and performing minor public
functions.
    “You speak as
though you have been educated to take life very seriously,” he smiled, “and
were already suffering from the burden of great wealth. Am I right in guessing
that you inherited a fortune from your parents?”
    “Yes. I am an
only child, and on my mother’s death I became very rich. But I have only the
vaguest ideas about the size of my fortune and how it is administered. In fact,
I really know very little about money at all.”
    “Perhaps you
make up for that by knowing a lot about love?”
    The yellow
diamonds in her diadem of stars sparkled as she shook her head. “Only at
second-hand, through books that I have read. I have been brought up very
strictly. Meeting a stranger like you to-night is quite an adventure for me.”
    He leaned
forward. “I do not mean this impertinently; but, how old are you?”
    “Nearly
twenty-five.”
    “And do you
really mean to say that you have never yet had a serious love affair?”
    “I was engaged
when I was twenty-one, but I had met my fiancé only about half a dozen times
before he fell overboard from a yacht and was drowned. He was younger than
myself and proved very shy on the few occasions we were left alone together.
So, although I rather liked the poor boy, I was only just getting to know