"My lord," he said, "when I decline a gentleman's services I am not to be forced into accepting them, and when I say a gentleman shall go with me he goes. Have you a quarrel with me on that account?"
Carford found no words in which to answer him, but his eyes told that he would have given the world to draw his sword against M. de Perrencourt, or, indeed, against the pair of us. A gesture of the newcomer's arm motioned him to the door. But he had one sentence more to hear before he was suffered to slink away.
"Kings, my lord," said M. de Perrencourt, "may be compelled to set spies about the persons of others. They do not need them about their own."
Carford turned suddenly white, and his teeth set. I thought that he would fly at the man who rebuked him so scornfully; but such an outbreak meant death; he controlled himself. He passed out, and Louis, with a careless laugh, seated himself on my bed. I stood respectfully opposite to him.
"Make your preparations," said he. "In half an hour's time we depart."
I obeyed him, setting about the task of filling my saddle-bags with my few possessions. He watched me in silence for awhile. At last he spoke.
"I have chosen you to go with me," he said, "because although you know a thing, you don't speak of it, and although you see a thing, you can appear blind."
I remembered that Madame thought my blindness deficient, but I received the compliment in silence.
"These great qualities," he pursued, "make a man's fortune. You shall come with me to Paris."