“My Royal Highness!” said he, this time in English. “I think Monsieur mistakes himself.” And then, when he saw how crestfallen I was, he smiled and hiccoughed again. “You are going to call on our good Clancarty,” said he. “In that case please tell him to translate to you the proverb, Oui phis sait plus se tait.”
“There is no necessity, Monsieur,” I answered promptly. “Now that I look closer I see I was mistaken. The person I did you the honour to take you for was one in whose opinion (if he took the trouble to think of me at all) I should have liked to re-establish myself, that was all.”
In spite of his dissipation there was something noble in his manner—a style of the shoulders and the hands, a poise of the head that I might practise for years and come no closer on than any nowt upon my father's fields. It was that which I remember best of our engagement on the stair, and that at the last of it he put out his hand to bid me good-day.
“My name,” says he, “is Monsieur Albany so long as I am in Dunkerque. À bon entendeur salut! I hope we may meet again, Monsieur Greig.” He looked down at the black boots I had bought me in Rouen. “If I might take the liberty to suggest it,” said he, smiling, “I should abide by the others. I have never seen their wearer wanting wit, esprit, and prudence—which are qualities that at this moment I desire above all in those that count themselves my friends.”
And with that he was gone. I watched him descend the remainder of the stair with much deliberation, and did not move a step myself until the tip of his scabbard had gone round the corner of the close.
CHAPTER XXX
A GUID CONCEIT OF MYSELF LEADS ME FAR ASTRAY
Clancarty and Thurot were playing cards, so intent upon that recreation that I was in the middle of the floor before they realised who it was the servant had ushered in.