"Surely ..." argued the younger man tentatively.
"You mean ...?"
Martin-Roget nodded. Despite these ambiguous half-spoken sentences the two men had understood one another.
"We must get her back, of course," assented the Duke, who had suddenly become as calm as the other man.
"There is no harm done," reiterated Martin-Roget with slow and earnest emphasis.
Whereupon the Duke, completely pacified, drew a chair close to the hearth and sat down, leaning his elbows on his knees and holding his fine, aristocratic hands to the blaze.
Frédérick came in half an hour later to ask if M. le duc would have his luncheon. He found the two gentlemen sitting quite close together over the dying embers of a fire that had not been fed for close upon an hour: and that prince of valets was glad to note that M. le duc's temper had quite cooled down and that he was talking calmly and very affably to M. Martin-Roget.