“I have been awake before,” said Roland, as if that were a reply.
“Well?”
“I want to ask you something, sir.”
“If,” said M. de Kersaint, studying him as he stood there in his shirt and breeches, “if it is to repeat La Vergne’s request of last night about Mirabel, I may as well tell you at once, my boy, that it is of no use.”
The youth’s visage so manifestly fell that his leader could not help smiling.
“I see that I guessed right. No, my dear boy, this business, if ever it gets itself done at all, is work for a much older head than yours.”
“I am not so young, Monsieur le Marquis,” pleaded the aspirant, in the same discreet tone. “I shall be twenty this year.”
“Yes, but not until the very end of it,” retorted M. de Kersaint with promptitude.
The child of December was first taken aback, then flattered, that the date of his obscure birthday should be known to his hero, who was now looking at him half-teasingly, a mood in which Roland especially adored him. Then the petitioner recovered himself.
“But even if you think me young, sir,” he went on with fervour, “nobody here, however much older he is——”