Explore "Forget-me-not" by Marjorie Bowen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The next day the domestic storms that always muttered below the horizon in the Hotel du Boccage broke into the open. There had been an entertainment at which the Duc de Nemours had been present and everything had gone awry; the service, the food, the music, the lights. The Duke had spoken sharply to the Major Domo, he to the housekeeper, she to the cook, the house had rung with recriminations. The Duchess, with reddened eyes, had shut herself into her apartments; everyone shifted responsibility on to someone else and blamed some invisible daemon for creating this devilish disorder.
Mademoiselle Lucille Debelleyme was a good gambler, she knew when to play for high stakes. Twenty-four hours after this fracas, some time before her usual daily consultation with the Duke was due, she knocked at the door of his apartments, which, to the right of the entrance chamber, were separated from those of the Duchess by a narrow corridor.