“Why, three days ago, I believe.”
“It takes a courier, at his utmost speed, twenty-four hours to go, and the same to return.”
“There still remain twenty-four hours,” said the marshal; “how have they been employed?”
“Alas, your grace, they were lost. The idea only came to me the day after I received the list of your guests. Now calculate the time necessary for the negotiation, and you will perceive that in asking you to wait till five I am only doing what I am absolutely obliged to do.”
“The bottle is not yet arrived, then?”
“No, your grace.”
“Ah, sir, if your colleague at Saverne be as devoted to the Prince de Rohan as you are to me, and should refuse the bottle, as you would do in his place——”
“I? your grace——”
“Yes; you would not, I suppose, have given away such a bottle, had it belonged to me?”
“I beg your pardon, humbly, your grace; but had a friend, having a king to provide for, asked me for your best bottle of wine, he should have had it immediately.”