Lanyard smothered with a smile whatever emotion was his of the moment.
"I didn't imagine you really meant to wait for me," he parried with double meaning, both to humour De Morbihan and hoodwink the attendant.
"What do you think?" retorted the Count with asperity—"that I'm willing to stand by and let you moon round Paris at this hour of the morning, hunting for a taxicab that isn't to be found and running God-knows-what risk of being stuck up by some misbegotten Apache? But I should say not! I mean to take you home in my car, though it cost me a half-hour of beauty sleep not lightly to be forfeited at my age!"
The significance that underlay the semi-humourous petulance of the little man was not wasted.
"You're most amiable, Monsieur le Comte!" Lanyard observed thoughtfully, while the attendant produced his hat and coat. "So now, if you're ready, I won't delay you longer."
In another moment they were outside the club-house, its doors shut behind them, while before them, at the curb, waited that same handsome black limousine which had brought the adventurer from L'Abbaye.
Two swift glances, right and left, showed him an empty street, bare of hint of danger.
"One moment, monsieur!" he said, detaining the Count with a touch on his sleeve. "It's only right that I should advise you … I'm armed."
"Then you're less foolhardy than one feared. If such things interest you, I don't mind admitting I carry a life-preserver of my own. But what of that? Is one eager to go shooting at this time of night, for the sheer fun of explaining to sergents de ville that one has been attacked by Apaches? … Providing always one lives to explain!"
"It's as bad as that, eh?"