"'Il vient!'" cried Fontelles, all on the alert.
"Precisely. Well, he may disturb you again."
"By Heaven, then he's here?"
"Why, yes."
"I met him last night! He cried those words to me again. The insolent rascal! I'll make him pay for it."
"In truth you've a reckoning to settle with him."
"But how does he come into this matter?"
"Insolent still, he's a suitor for Mistress Quinton's hand."
Fontelles gave a scornful shrug of his shoulders; Carford, smiling and more at ease, watched him. The idea promised well; it would be a stroke indeed could the quarrel be shifted on to my shoulders, and M. de Fontelles and I set by the ears; whatever the issue of that difference, Carford stood to win by it. And I, not he, would be the man to resist the King's commands.
"But how comes he here?" cried Fontelles.