"Before dawn? Marry, I was sleeping the sleep of the virtuous."
M. Étienne slipped across the room as quickly as Peyrot's self might have done, lifted up a heavy curtain hanging before an alcove, and disclosed the bed folded smooth, the pillow undisturbed. He turned with a triumphant grin on the owner, who showed all his teeth pleasantly in answer, no whit abashed.
"For all you are a count, monsieur, you have the worst manners ever came inside these walls."
M. le Comte, with no attempt at mending them, went on a tour about the room, examining with sniffing interest all its furniture, even to the dishes and tankards on the table. Peyrot, leaning against the wall by the window, regarded him steadily, with impassive face. At length M. Étienne walked over to the chest by the chimneypiece and deliberately put his hand on the key.
Instantly Peyrot's voice rang out, "Stop!" M. Étienne, turning, looked into his pistol-barrel.
My lord stood exactly as he was, bent over the chest, his fingers on the key, looking over his shoulder at the bravo with raised, protesting eyebrows and laughing mouth. But though he laughed, he stood still.
"If you make a movement I do not like, M. de Mar, I will shoot you as I would a rat. Your side is down and mine is up; I have no fear to kill you. It will be painful to me, but if necessary I shall do it."
M. Étienne sat down on the chest and smiled more amiably than ever.
"Why—have I never known you before, Peyrot?"
"One moment, monsieur." The nose of the pistol pointed around to me. "Go over there to the door, you."