"It is," the other said. "All nights and all roads, and all days as well. Fleur de Mai and I require little preparation. Our horses are in their stables, our clothes on our backs; our best friends," with a glance of his eye--that glance with which a Frenchman can infer a whole sentence!--towards the weapons hanging in their sashes on the wall, "are there." "Good. You will have a light, easy task of it, a pleasant ride through the sunniest provinces of France; the best of inns to sleep in, eat in, drink in----" "So. So. 'Tis very well," grunted Fleur de Mai approvingly. "--and," continued La Truaumont, "your pockets filled with pistoles ere you set out, replenished with them when you arrive at your destination, and refilled again when you return to Paris. Can heart of man desire more?" "Whatever the hearts of Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury may desire more," the former of those two worthies said, "they are not likely to get. Therefore we are content. We will guard the noble lady valiantly. If our two swords are not enough to shield her and her companion, 'tis not very like a dozen others could." "There will be one other," La Truaumont said quietly, as now Fleur de Mai made a sign to the drawer to bring the reckoning. "One other!" the latter exclaimed, turning round to look at La Truaumont. "What other? Any of our 'friends' by chance? Of our noble and distinguished confraternity?" "By no means. The other blade--he is a good one--is a young man who loves the _demoiselle de compagnie_ of the illustrious traveller; one who rides half-way upon the long journey to thereby keep his _fiancée_ company and to act as protector, escort, squire of dames." "Who is he? Do we know him?" While, dropping his voice, Fleur de Mai added, "Is he in the Great Venture?" "No, to each and every question. You have never heard of him or seen him, and he knows no more of the 'Great Venture' than he who is the object of that great venture's existence knows. The man in question is an Englishman." "An Englishman!" the two companions exclaimed together, while Fleur de Mai added, "What do we want with him?" "Nothing--no more than he wants with you, he going only, as I have said, to be by the side of his beloved. He goes," La Truaumont continued with some little emphasis, "unpaid, unhired and untrammelled. He can turn back when half of the first portion of the journey is completed, or, arrived at the end of the first portion, he can, if it so pleases him, encompass the second with the ladies. He is well-to-do and his pockets are well lined." "He is an Englishman all the same," Fleur de Mai grumbled. "On one side only. His mother is a Frenchwoman." "That's better," both the men said together. After which Fleur de Mai asked:-- "But the Venture? The Great Attempt? You say he knows nought of that. Yet he will be _there_ as well as we when the illustrious lady has gone on her way; when Van den Enden----" "Hush, idiot. No names."