"But naturally: that makes it an affair of your honour," Lanyard explained suavely.
With a gesture of graceful capitulation the Frenchman accepted the little roll of film.
"Permit me," he said, "to acknowledge the honour of monsieur's confidence!"
Lanyard bowed low: "One knows with whom one deals, monsieur!… And now, if you will be good enough to excuse me…."
He turned to the door.
"But—eh—where are you going?" Ducroy demanded.
"Mademoiselle," Lanyard said, pausing on the threshold—"that is, the young lady who is to accompany me—is waiting anxiously in the garden, out yonder. I go to find and reassure her and—with your permission—to bring her in to the library, where we will await monsieur when he has finished telephoning and—ah—repaired the deficiencies in his attire; which one trusts he will forgive one's mentioning!"
He bowed again, impudently, gaily, and—when the Minister of War looked up again sheepishly from contemplation of his naked shanks—had vanished.
In high feather Lanyard made his way to a door at the rear of the house which gave upon the garden—in his new social status of Governmental protégé disdaining any such a commonplace avenue as that conservatory window whose fastenings he had forced on entering. And boldly unbolting the door, he ran out into the night, to rejoin his beloved, like a man waking to new life.
But she was no more there: the bench was vacant, the garden deserted, the gateway yawning on the street.