And how vastly changed were the circumstances since our last meeting!
The disorder that had stamped itself upon his countenance when first
he had beheld me still prevailed. There was a lowering, sullen look
in his eyes and a certain displacement of their symmetry which was
peculiar to them when troubled.
Although a cunning plotter and a scheming intriguer in his own
interests, Chatellerault, as I have said before, was not by nature
a quick man. His wits worked slowly, and he needed leisure to
consider a situation and his actions therein ere he was in a
position to engage with it.
"Monsieur le Comte," quoth I ironically, "I make you my compliments
upon your astuteness and the depth of your schemes, and my
condolences upon the little accident owing to which I am here, and
in consequence of which your pretty plans are likely to miscarry."
He threw back his great head like a horse that feels the curb, and
his smouldering eyes looked up at me balefully. Then his sensuous
lips parted in scorn.
"How much do you know?" he demanded with sullen contempt.
"I have been in that room for the half of an hour," I answered,
rapping the partition with my knuckles.
"The dividing wall, as you will observe, is thin, and I heard
everything that passed between you and Mademoiselle de Lavedan."
"So that Bardelys, known as the Magnificent; Bardelys the mirror
of chivalry; Bardelys the arbiter elegantiarum of the Court of
France, is no better, it seems, than a vulgar spy.
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