He smiled.
"Why, Rumbald thinks you disaffected towards the King; and yet knows you are in his service. You would be a very great helper to them, if you cared."
It was my turn to smile.
"My Lord Essex is not a fool," I said. "If they know so much of me, would they not know more?"
"Plainly they do not," he said. "Or they would not have tried to get you on their side."
I laughed softly.
"Sir," I said, "you are very sharp: but you are not sharp enough."
Then I related to him the behaviour of them all in the inn; and how Rumbald had shewn no surprise in seeing that I was a gentleman after all; and how my Lord Essex had talked in what would have been the maddest manner, if his intention had been as Chiffinch had thought it to be; and with every word that I said the page's face grew longer.
"Well," he cried, "it is beyond me altogether. What then is the explanation?"
"My friend," I said, "you were right. Neither before nor after what has passed to-day would I have done the work you designed for me which was to get these men's confidence, and then betray it again. But it is not their idea to give me their confidence at all. So I will work with you very gladly."