Chauvenet suddenly jumped toward the table, the revolver still swinging at arm’s length.
“You know too much!”
“I don’t know any more than Armitage, and Baron von Marhof and my father, and the Honorable Secretary of State, to say nothing of the equally Honorable Secretary of War.”
Claiborne stretched out his arms and rested them along the shelf of the mantel, and smiled with a smile which the dirt on his face weirdly accented. His hat was gone, his short hair rumpled; he dug the bricks of the hearth with the toe of his riding-boot as an emphasis of his contentment with the situation.
“You don’t understand the gravity of our labors. The peace of a great Empire is at stake in this business. We are engaged on a patriotic mission of great importance.”
It was Durand who spoke. Outside, Zmai held the horses in readiness.
“You are a fine pair of patriots, I swear,” said Claiborne. “What in the devil do you want with John Armitage?”
“He is a menace to a great throne—an impostor—a—”
Chauvenet’s eyes swept with a swift glance the cloak, the sword, the scattered orders. Claiborne followed the man’s gaze, but he looked quickly toward Durand and Chauvenet, not wishing them to see that the sight of these things puzzled him.
“Pretty trinkets! But such games as yours, these pretty baubles—are not for these free hills.”