“Naturally.”
The Comte des Forges meditatively licked his signet ring. “I knew something d-dreadful had hap-happened,” he stammered. “Why ever should I only be able to t-throw twos to-to-night?”
“What do you make of that?” asked Mont Rouge.
St. Benôit appeared to study his uniform of the Chevau-légers de la Garde in the mirror. His eye rested on Denise and her companion. “The second time in the last three months,” he muttered. “What does the courier say?”
“Say,” repeated the Comtesse des Forges, “say! Not a word, you may swear. The fool knows nothing till he woke to find a gag in his mouth and two peasants glaring at him as if he were the devil.”
“Pontchartrain,” remarked the Duchess, “is sure the man fell in with a siren at the cabaret where he had his supper. Pontchartrain knows most of the cabarets and all the sirens.”
“Wait, wait,” pursued the Abbé. “The courier was carrying not merely army despatches, but,” his voice dropped, “a private cipher message from His Majesty to the agent of the Jacobites.”
St. Benôit so forgot the etiquette of the Salon de la Paix as to whistle softly.
“B-by Jove!” stammered Des Forges.
“They say,” whispered the Abbé to his enthralled audience, “that the message was an invitation to Prince Charles Edward to ignore the King’s explicit promise to the English ambassador and to present himself at Versailles.”