"No one else has recognized me?" he asked.
"I believe not."
He drew a quick breath of relief. "Bien! It has been an affair très difficile. I have feared detection mille fois. Yet I did not expect you to recognize me so soon."
"You see, I happen to know you rather well," Mordaunt said.
The Frenchman spread out his hands protestingly. The excitement of the adventure had flushed his face and kindled his eyes. He looked younger and more ardent than Mordaunt had ever seen him. The weariness that had so grown upon him during his exile had fallen from him like a cloak. "But you do not know me at all!" he said.
Mordaunt passed over the remark as if he had not heard it. "What have you come for?" he asked.
"To see you, monsieur." The reply was as direct as the question. A momentary challenge shone in Bertrand's eyes as he made it.
But Mordaunt remained coldly unimpressed. "It was not a very wise move on your part," he remarked. "You will be arrested if you are discovered. The authorities are not ready for you yet. They are quite capable of suppressing you for good and all if it suits their purpose."
"I know it. But that is of no importance after to-night." Bertrand stood and faced him squarely. "After to-night," he said, "they may do what they will. I shall have accomplished that which I came to do."
"And that?" said Mordaunt. He looked back into the eager eyes with the aloofness of a stranger. His manner was too impersonal to express either enmity or contempt.