The men lit their cigars and smoked in silence.
“Colonel,” said Maurice at last, “will you kindly tell me what all this means?”
“Never ask your host how old his wine is. If he is proud of it, he will tell you.” He blew the smoke under the candle shades and watched it as it darted upward. “Don't you find it comfortable? I should.”
“Conscience will not lie down at one's bidding.”
“I understood that you were a diplomat?” The Colonel turned to Fitzgerald. “I hope that, when you are liberated, you will forget the manner in which you were brought here.”
“I shall forget nothing,” curtly.
“The devil! I can not fight you; I am too old.”
Fitzgerald said nothing, and continued to play with his emptied wine-glass.
“The Princess Alexia,” went on the Colonel, “has a bulldog. I have always wondered till now what the nationality of the dog was. The bulldog neither forsakes nor forgives; he is an Englishman.”
This declaration was succeeded by another interval of silence. The Englishman was thinking of his father; the thoughts of Maurice were anywhere but at the chateau; the Colonel was contemplating them both, shrewdly.