Again the Grand Master was silent awhile. At length he looked up and fixed Tavannes with eyes keen as steel. "What is behind?" he growled. "Say, man, what is it? What is behind?"
"If there be aught behind, I do not know it," Tavannes answered steadfastly.
M. de Biron relaxed the fixity of his gaze. "But you said that you had an object?" he returned.
"I had--in being the bearer of the message."
"What was it?"
"My object? To learn two things."
"The first, if it please you?" The Grand Master's chin stuck out a little, as he spoke.
"Have you in the Arsenal a M. de Tignonville, a gentleman of Poitou?"
"I have not," Biron answered curtly. "The second?"
"Have you here a Huguenot minister?"