“There you are wrong,” answered Lory, quietly. And the abbé snapped both fingers and thumbs in a double-barrelled feu de joie.
“The count may have possessed title-deeds before his death, thirty years ago,” said the notary, with that polite patience in argument which the certain winner alone can compass.
Then the colonel's quiet voice broke into the conversation. His manner was politely indifferent, and seemed to plead for peace at any cost.
“I should much like to be done with these formalities,” he said—“if I may be allowed to suggest a little promptitude. The troops are moving, as you have heard. In an hour's time I sail for Marseilles with these men. Let us finish with the signatures.”
“Let us, on the contrary, delay signing until the war is over,” suggested Lory.
“You cannot bring your father to life again, monsieur, and you cannot manufacture title-deeds. Your father, the notary tells us, has been dead thirty years, and the Château de Vasselot has been burnt with all the papers in it. You have no case at all.”
Lory was unbuttoning his tunic, awkwardly with one hand.
“But the notary is wrong,” he said. “The Château de Vasselot was burnt, it is true, but here are the title-deeds. My father did not die thirty years ago, but yesterday morning, in my arms.”
Gilbert smiled gently. His innate politeness obviously forbade him to laugh at this absurd story.
“Then where has he been all these years?” he inquired with a good-humoured patience.