“If neither love, ambition nor money will stir you,” she said. “Still, you may find an incentive to serve. There is chivalry.”
“I’m no troubadour.”
“Will you serve me?” she asked abruptly. He looked at her in surprise.
“Am I not serving you?”
“You are—after your own fashion—which I do not like. I wish your service—need it. But not this way.”
He nodded slowly. “I will serve you—in any way you wish,” he said.
Solange smiled under the veil, her mouth curving into beautiful lines.
“That is better. I shall need you, monsieur. You cannot, it is clear, serve me effectively by being thrown into jail for months. I must find the mine and the man who killed my father before that.”
De Launay shook his head. “You expect to find the mine and the man, after nineteen years?”
“I expect to make the attempt,” she replied, calmly. “It is in the hands of God, my success. Somehow, I feel that I shall succeed, at least in some measure, but the same premonition points to you as one who shall make that success possible. I do not know why that is.”