"It is warm to-night," said Belfort to me. He called one of the servants, who opened another window. With Marcel's blunder fresh before me, I was not likely to repeat it, and I continued to play the cards in silence.
"Do you not regard the insurrection as dead?" he asked.
"I have been too short a time in America," I replied in a judicial tone, "to be an authority, but I should say no."
"What do they think at home?" he asked.
"Some one way and some another," I replied. "Fox and Burke and their followers think, or pretend to think, that the rebels will yet win, and the loyal servants of the king, who are in the great majority, God bless him! think that if the insurrection is not dead it soon will be. But why speak of politics to-night, Lieutenant Belfort, when we are here for pleasure?"
I was afraid that he would lead me into treacherous fields. He listened, and then turned back to the subject of Harding.
"He is unusually late," he said, "but I suppose that Captain Montague can stand it."
"Undoubtedly," I replied. "Cousins are usually superfluous, any way."
I had made up my mind that we would maintain the illusion until the actual exposure and my nerves had become steady.
The door opened once more, and another young man entered. His features were unmistakably English. He looked around with the air of a stranger, and Marcel and I again were silent, just waiting.