"Enough to make me loath to linger at your side in a lighted doorway!"
Lanyard laughed in his own discomfiture. "Monsieur le Comte," said he, "there's a dash in you of what your American pal, Mysterious Smith, would call sporting blood, that commands my unstinted admiration. I thank you for your offered courtesy, and beg leave to accept."
De Morbihan replied with a grunt of none too civil intonation, instructed the chauffeur "To Troyon's," and followed Lanyard into the car.
"Courtesy!" he repeated, settling himself with a shake. "That makes nothing. If I regarded my own inclinations, I'd let you go to the devil as quick as Popinot's assassins could send you there!"
"This is delightful!" Lanyard protested. "First you must see me home to save my life, and then you tell me your inclinations consign me to a premature grave. Is there an explanation, possibly?"
"On your person," said the Count, sententious.
"Eh?"
"You carry your reason with you, my friend—in the shape of the Omber loot."
"Assuming you are right—"
"You never went to the rue du Bac, monsieur, without those jewels: and
I have had you under observation ever since."