Detricand’s answer came biting and dry. “You are an officer of your King, as was I. You should know that hanging the invaders of Jersey would have been butchery. We were soldiers of France; we had the distinction of being prisoners of war, monsieur.”
This shot went home. Philip had been touched in that nerve called military honour. He got to his feet. “You are right,” he answered with reluctant frankness. “Our grudge is not individual, it is against France, and we’ll pay it soon with good interest, monsieur.”
“The individual grudge will not be lost sight of in the general, I hope?” rejoined Detricand with cool suggestion, his clear, persistent grey eye looking straight into Philip’s.
“I shall do you that honour,” said Philip with mistaken disdain.
Detricand bowed low. “You will always find me in the suite of the Prince of Vaufontaine, monsieur, and ready to be so distinguished by you.” Turning to Guida, he added: “Mademoiselle will perhaps do me the honour to notice me again one day?” then, with a mocking nod to Philip, he left the house.
Guida and Philip stood looking after him in silence for a minute. Suddenly Guida said to herself: “My handkerchief—why did he take my handkerchief? He put it in his pocket again.”
Philip turned on her impatiently.
“What was that adventurer saying to you, Guida? In the suite of the Prince of Vaufontaine, my faith! What did he come here for?”
Guida looked at him in surprise. She scarcely grasped the significance of the question. Before she had time to consider, he pressed it again, and without hesitation she told him all that had happened—it was so very little, of course—between Detricand and herself. She omitted nothing save that Detricand had carried off the handkerchief, and she could not have told, if she had been asked, why she did not speak of it.
Philip raged inwardly. He saw the meaning of the whole situation from Detricand’s stand-point, but he was wise enough from his own stand-point to keep it to himself; and so both of them reserved something, she from no motive that she knew, he from an ulterior one. He was angry too: angry at Detricand, angry at Guida for her very innocence, and because she had caught and held even the slight line of association Detricand had thrown.