The Indiscretion of the Duchess

'The Indiscretion of the Duchess' is an adventure-romance novel by Anthony Hope. Written in first-person, it follows the adventures of a man in Paris, who one morning, as he sat smoking his after-breakfast cigar in his rooms in St. James' Street, was suddenly visited by his friend Gustave de Berensac, who told him that the Duchess of Saint-Maclou is currently in residence—which piqued our protagonist interest, for he has always wanted to meet this woman.