“From the king?”
“From the king.”
He said not a word more. I questioned him in my turn.
“I sent you a message by the courier. Why did you not come direct to me?”
“I had business first. I answered, ‘If you will tell her that I will witness for her and bring my report this evening, she will understand.’”
“I understood nothing but that you were in no hurry to thank me.”
He made no reply.
“It is only after a struggle with my pride, sir,” I continued, “that I am here to keep your appointment. I think, perhaps, your business might have kept better.”
“Do you? Well, perhaps, after all, you have a shallow wit.”
I looked at him in dumb amaze. We were loitering on, to me aimlessly, though I knew presently how all the time he had been rigidly enforcing our direction. The city was in its hottest night-fever of excitement over the executions that had taken place that day, in a mood already too monstrous to take much heed of the shock and tattered prodigy that stumped by my side. Once, passing a group, I caught a name, and startled, and was hurrying on; but he snatched my wrist, and forced me to linger, absorbing horror to the dregs. I knew his temper by that, and to what I had delivered myself; but I never feared him so much as when he would not speak.