Pierre raised his eyes sleepily. "Haganè—come? No, Excellency! he did not see—"
"Madame will tell him, fool."
"Never! She will die first."
"Ah, allow me, then, to congratulate you," Ronsard permitted himself to sneer. Then swiftly, "You have been seen! The servants! The police—"
"Your Excellency," chattered Mouquin, darting a ghastly face through the door, "Prince Haganè is announced. He is coming down the hall—he is here!"
"I thought I heard footsteps. Hold him, just a moment." Ronsard rose to his feet. With a low whisper that stung with the lash of a knout he bent to Pierre. "Stand, you fool! And if you have never known what it is to be a man, try the feeling now! Hide the paper in your breast. There! Smile, though your face crack!"
Pierre thrust the document into his coat and rose to greet Haganè, who entered calm, dignified, and stately, not a fold out of place, nor a hair ruffled. If any characteristic were intensified it was in deliberate tardiness of advance, an undue rigidity of self-restraint. He bowed deeply to Count Ronsard, ignoring, for the moment, the presence of the younger men.
"Your Excellency will be surprised, perhaps annoyed, at this unceremonious call. It concerns a personal matter which could not be delayed. There is nothing official, you understand. It lies between Monsieur Le Beau and myself." He turned now to Pierre with the slightest inclination of the head, and then bowed more deferentially to the flaccid Mouquin by the wall.
"Anything that brings your Highness is an honor," returned Ronsard, himself placing a chair for the great man.
Haganè seated himself with the same painstaking calm. As he did not speak, his host continued, with obvious effort at composure, "What does slightly surprise me, your Highness,—if you will allow me to say it,—is—er—your seeming so certain of finding Monsieur Le Beau here, when your efficient police have been searching—"