“No, I did not,” answered the Marquis in a fairly natural tone.
Louis murmured that he was sorry, and there was a pause, Gilbert feeling that he had nothing more to say. Glancing at his cousin he saw that he was lying with his eyes shut, and also that he looked rather spent. He got up, and Louis immediately opened his eyes.
“Are you going? . . . There is one thing that I wanted to ask you—did I talk any nonsense when I was off my head up in that place?”
Gilbert felt a second’s spasm at his heart. It had not occurred to him that Louis would ask such a question. . . . His answer should be the first step along the road which he had mapped out for immediate travelling.
“I don’t know what you mean by nonsense,” he said, fidgeting with a spoon on the table. “You were a trifle delirious, of course. Ah, I see what you mean. No, you were much too rambling for me to learn any secrets.” He felt that to carry off his part with conviction he must look his cousin in the face at this point, and did so. Was it fancy that Louis had turned whiter than he already was? He could not pause to consider, but went on with a geniality which astonished and disgusted himself: “My dear boy, you can be easy on that score. You did not tell me anything . . . which I did not know before.”
“That’s a relief,” said Louis in a jocular tone, but so faintly that Château-Foix was aware in an instant of the strain that he had been through, and saw, indeed, the next moment, that he had fainted in good earnest.
The Marquis looked down at him for a minute with a smile which was not very pleasant, then he went to the door and called for Madame Geffroi. Amid the torrent of reproaches and lamentations which ensued he made his escape.
And as he went back an abhorrent thought leapt suddenly into his mind, out of nowhere—not so much a thought as a picture—of the inn-kitchen at Pézé, and of Louis throwing himself between him and the man who “had a knife.” It had vivid colouring, and was only a little blurred in outline. If it were a true image he owed his life to the kinsman who had betrayed him. It was the last intolerable drop in the cup.
“Dear Madame,” said Louis politely but firmly, “if you do not cause my cousin to come here, I shall have to go out to find him!”