"Did you take us for Leaguers?"
I nodded.
He spoke as if actually he felt it important to set himself right in my eyes.
"Well, we are none. We are no politicians, but private gentlemen with a grudge to pay. I care not what the parties do. Whether we have the Princess Isabelle or Henry the Huguenot, 'tis all one to me; I am not putting either on the throne. So if you have got it into your head that we are plotting for the League, why, get it out again."
"But you are enemies to the Duke of St. Quentin?"
He answered me slowly:
"We do not love him. But we do not plot his death. He goes his way unharmed by us. We are gentlemen, not bravos."
"And Lucas?"
"Lucas is my cousin's enemy, and, being a great man's man, skulks behind the bars of the Hôtel st. Quentin and will not face my cousin's sword. So to reach him takes a little plotting. Do you believe me?"
I looked into his gray eyes, that had flashed so hotly in my defence, and I could not but believe him.