"Desired by Dom Modeste!" cried Chicot.
"Yes, go and complain to him now, if you like."
Chicot, bewildered, and feeling his way as it were in the dark, perceived, at these words, a gleam of light traversing the obscurity of his brain.
"Ah!" he said, "I knew it perfectly well."
"What did you know?"
"What you did not wish to tell me."
"I do not tell my own secrets, and, for a greater reason, the secrets of others."
"Yes, but to me."
"Why should I to you?"
"You should tell them to me because I am a friend of Dom Modeste, and, for another reason, you should tell them to me because—"