“Hopes of what?”
“That he will make what reparation lies in his power. Provide for the widow and the orphans. Why else should he desire to hear me further?”
“Unusual condescension,” said André-Louis, and quoted “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”
“Why?” asked Philippe.
“Let us go and discover—unless you consider that I shall be in the way.”
Into a room on the right, rendered private to M. le Marquis for so long as he should elect to honour it, the young men were ushered by the host. A fire of logs was burning brightly at the room’s far end, and by this sat now M. de La Tour d’Azyr and his cousin, the Chevalier de Chabrillane. Both rose as M. de Vilmorin came in. André-Louis following, paused to close the door.
“You oblige me by your prompt courtesy, M. de Vilmorin,” said the Marquis, but in a tone so cold as to belie the politeness of his words. “A chair, I beg. Ah, Moreau?” The note was frigidly interrogative. “He accompanies you, monsieur?” he asked.
“If you please, M. le Marquis.”
“Why not? Find yourself a seat, Moreau.” He spoke over his shoulder as to a lackey.
“It is good of you, monsieur,” said Philippe, “to have offered me this opportunity of continuing the subject that took me so fruitlessly, as it happens, to Gavrillac.”
The Marquis crossed his legs, and held one of his fine hands to the blaze. He replied, without troubling to turn to the young man, who was slightly behind him.
“The goodness of my request we will leave out of question for the moment,” said he, darkly, and M. de Chabrillane laughed. André-Louis thought him easily moved to mirth, and almost envied him the faculty.
“But I am grateful,” Philippe insisted, “that you should condescend to hear me plead their cause.”
The Marquis stared at him over his shoulder. “Whose cause?” quoth he.
“Why, the cause of the widow and orphans of this unfortunate Mabey.”
The Marquis looked from Vilmorin to the Chevalier, and again the Chevalier laughed, slapping his leg this time.
“I think,” said M. de La Tour d’Azyr, slowly, “that we are at cross-purposes. I asked you to come here because the Château de Gavrillac was hardly a suitable place in which to carry our discussion further, and because I hesitated to incommode you by suggesting that you should come all the way to Azyr. But my object is connected with certain expressions that you let fall up there. It is on the subject of those expressions, monsieur, that I would hear you further—if you will honour me.”
André-Louis began to apprehend that there was something sinister in the air. He was a man of quick intuitions, quicker far than those of M. de Vilmorin, who evinced no more than a mild surprise.
“I am at a loss, monsieur,” said he. “To what expressions does monsieur allude?”
“It seems, monsieur, that I must refresh your memory.” The Marquis crossed his legs, and swung sideways on his chair, so that at last he directly faced M. de Vilmorin. “You spoke, monsieur—and however mistaken you may have been, you spoke very eloquently, too eloquently almost, it seemed to me—of the infamy of such a deed as the act of summary justice upon this thieving fellow Mabey, or whatever his name may be. Infamy was the precise word you used. You did not retract that word when I had the honour to inform you that it was by my orders that my gamekeeper Benet proceeded as he did.”
“If,” said M. de Vilmorin, “the deed was infamous, its infamy is not modified by the rank, however exalted, of the person responsible. Rather is it aggravated.”
“Ah!” said M. le Marquis, and drew a gold snuffbox from his pocket. “You say, ‘if the deed was infamous,’ monsieur. Am I to understand that you are no longer as convinced as you appeared to be of its infamy?”
M. de Vilmorin’s fine face wore a look of perplexity. He did not understand the drift of this.
“It occurs to me, M. le Marquis, in view of your readiness to assume responsibility, that you must believe justification for the deed which is not apparent to myself.”
“That is better. That is distinctly better.” The Marquis took snuff delicately, dusting the fragments from the fine lace at his throat. “You realize that with an imperfect understanding of these matters, not being yourself a landowner, you may have rushed to unjustifiable conclusions. That is indeed the case. May it be a warning to you, monsieur. When I tell you that for months past I have been annoyed by similar depredations, you will perhaps understand that it had become necessary to employ a deterrent sufficiently strong to put an end to them. Now that the risk is known, I do not think there will be any more prowling in my coverts. And there is more in it than that, M. de Vilmorin. It is not the poaching that annoys me so much as the contempt for my absolute and inviolable rights. There is, monsieur, as you cannot fail to have observed, an evil spirit of insubordination in the air, and there is one only way in which to meet it. To tolerate it, in however slight a degree, to show leniency, however leniently disposed, would entail having recourse to still harsher measures tomorrow. You understand me, I am sure, and you will also, I am sure, appreciate the condescension of what amounts to an explanation from me where I cannot admit that any explanations were due. If anything in what I have said is still obscure to you, I refer you to the game laws, which your lawyer friend there will expound for you at need.”
With that the gentleman swung round again to face the fire. It appeared to convey the intimation that the interview was at an end. And yet this was not by any means the intimation that it conveyed to the watchful, puzzled, vaguely uneasy André-Louis. It was, thought he, a very curious, a very suspicious oration. It affected
