“Might I again venture?”
“Pray do.”
“I have or can have an errand in Belgium. Give me the papers. They will reach their destination if I am alive, and, so far, I at least must be entirely unsuspected. My obvious reason for going will leak out and be such as to safeguard my real reason.”
“May I ask why you go to Belgium?”
“Yes, I want it known. I have arranged to satisfy a gentleman named Porthos, who thinks himself injured.”
“Porthos!” exclaimed the minister. “Why, that is a character in one of Dumas’s novels.”
“Yes, I beg pardon; we call him Porthos. Mr. Greville will explain later. He is the Baron la Garde. An absurd affair.”
“I deeply regret it,” said the minister. “I hoped it was settled. But you may be hurt, and, pardon me, killed.”
“In that case my second, Lieutenant West of our navy, will have the papers and carry them to London. Count le Moyne is one of the baron’s seconds. He will hardly dream that he is an escort of the papers he lost. But, sir, one word more. Madame Bellegarde is an American. You will not desert her?”
“Not I. Rest easy as to that. We owe her too much.”