But Fontenoy, when he came up with the wanderer, seemed to have no great mind for talk. He had evidently been pacing and thinking by himself, and when he was fullest of thought he was as a rule most silent and inarticulate.
"You are late; so am I," he said, as he turned back with Tressady.
George assented.
"I have been thinking out one or two points of tactics."
But instead of discussing them he sank into silence again. George let him alone, knowing his ways.
Presently he said, raising his powerful head with a jerk, "But tactics are not of such importance as they were. I think the thing is done—done!" he repeated with emphasis.
George shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know. We may be too sanguine. It is not possible that Maxwell should be easily beaten."
Fontenoy laughed—a strange, high laugh, like a jay's, that seemed to have no relation to his massive frame, and died suddenly away.
"But we shall beat him," he said quietly; "and her, too. A well-meaning woman—but what a foolish one!"