Lawrence was startled.  But he could do no good now, and the Frenchman was fidgeting at his bedroom door.  Later . . .

Secure of privacy Gaston’s decorum relaxed a trifle, for it was clear to him that confidences must be at least tacitly exchanged:  M’sieur le captaine could not hope to keep him in the dark, there never was an elopement yet of which valet and lady’s maid were not cognizant.  Like Catherine, “You wish I pack for you, Sare?” he asked in his lively imperfect English.  He was naturally a chatterbox and brimful of a Parisian’s salted malice, even after six years in the service of Captain Hyde, who did not encourage his attendants to be communicative.

Lawrence was tearing off his accursed evening clothes. (All day it had been the one drop of sweetness in his bitter cup that he had borrowed Lucian’s razor and shaved in Lucian’s rooms.) “Get me a tweed suit and boots.”

Gaston frowned, wrinkling his nose:  if M’sieur imagined that that nose had no scent for an affair of gallantry—!  But still he persisted, even he, though the snub was a bitter pill:  himself a gallant man, could allow for jaded nerves.  “You wish I pack, yes?” he deprecated reticence by his insinuatingly sympathetic tone.

“No,” said Lawrence, tying his tie before a mirror.  “I’m coming back.”

“’Ere?  Back—­so—­’ere, m’sieur?”

“Yes, before tonight.”

It was more than flesh and blood could stand.  “Sir Clowes ’e say no,” remarked Gaston in a detached and nonchalant tone, as he gathered up the garments which his master had strewn over the floor. “’E verree angree.  ’E say ’Zut! m’sieur le captaine est parti!—­il ne revient plus.’”

“Gaston.”  The Frenchman turned from the press in which he was hanging up Lawrence’s coat.  “You’re a perfect scamp, my man,” Lawrence spoke over his shoulder as he ran through the contents of a pocketbook, “and I should be sorry to think you were attached to me.  But your billet is comfortable, I believe:  I pay you jolly good wages, you steal pretty much what you like, and you have the additional pleasure of reading all my letters.  Now listen:  I’m coming back to Wanhope before tonight and so is Mrs. Clowes.  I’m not going to run away with her, as Major Clowes gave you all to understand.  What you think is of no importance whatever to any one, what you say is equally trilling, but I don’t choose to have my servant say it:  so, if you continue to drop these interesting hints, I shall not only boot you out, but” —­he turned “I shall give you such a thrashing in the rear, Gaston—­in this direction, Gaston—­that you won’t be able to sit down comfortably for a month.”

“M’sieur is so droll,” murmured Gaston, removing himself with dignified agility and an unabashed grimace.