“M. Chicot, as I do not like questions whose import I do not understand, I beg you to change the conversation before I am forced to tell you that I do not like questioners. Come, M. Chicot, we have but a few minutes left.”
“Well! in a few minutes one can say a great deal; however, I might have dispensed with asking you the question, as if you do not belong to the League now, you soon will, as M. d’Anjou does.”
“M. d’Anjou! Who told you that?”
“Himself, speaking to me in person, as the gentlemen of the law say, or rather write; for example, that dear M. Nicolas David, that star of the Forum Parisiense. Now you understand that as M. d’Anjou belongs to the League, you cannot help belonging to it also; you, who are his right arm. The League knows better than to accept a maimed chief.”
“Well, M. Chicot, what then?”
“Why, if you do belong to it, or they think you are likely to do so, what has happened to his royal highness will certainly happen to you.”
“And what has happened to him?”
“Monsieur,” said Chicot, rising and imitating M. de Bussy’s manner of a little before, “I do not love questions, nor questioners, therefore I have a great mind to let them do to you what they have done to-night to the duke.”
“M. Chicot,” said Bussy, with a smile, “speak, I beg of you; where is the duke?”
“He is in prison?”