“You can easily acquit the debt of obligation, Morlache,” said D'Esmonde; “for my Lord was just asking me, before you came in, if he could take the liberty of begging the loan of your carriage to take him up to the Moskova. You are aware that it would not be quite proper to take a hired carriage, just now, up to the villa; that, as the Prince affects to be absent——”
“To be sure,” broke in Morlache. “I am but too happy to accommodate your Lordship. Your precaution was both delicate and well thought of. Indeed, I greatly doubt that they would admit a fiacre at all.”
“I suppose I should have had to walk from the gate,” said Norwood, who now saw the gist of the Abbé's stratagem.
“Morlache's old gray is a passport that requires no visa,” said D'Esmonde. “You 'll meet neither let nor hindrance with him in front of you. You may parody the great statesman's peroration, and say, 'Where the King cannot enter, he can.' Such is it to be a banker's horse!”
Norwood heard little or nothing of this remark. Deeply sunk in his own thoughts, he arose abruptly from the table.
“You are not going away, my Lord? You are surely not deserting that flask of Marcobrunner that we have only tasted?”
But Norwood never heard the words, and continued to follow his own train of reflection. Then, bending over D'Esmonde, he said, “In case we should require to cross the frontier at Lavenza, must we have passports?”
“Nothing of the kind. There is no police, no inquiry whatever.”
“Good-bye, then. If you should not hear from, you will hear of me, Abbé. There are a few things which, in the event of accident, I will jot down in writing. You 'll look to them for me. Good-evening, or good-morning,—I scarcely know which.” And, with all the habitual indolence of his lounging manner, he departed.
D'Esmonde stood for a few seconds silent, and then said, “Is the noble Viscount deep in your books?”