Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/261

Rh absurd weakness called love for one's fellow-creatures; but if ever he hated any man with the blackest and bitterest hate of his black and bitter heart, so did he hate the man standing now before him, twisting a ring round and round his delicate finger, and looking as entirely at his ease as if no point were in discussion of more importance than the wet weather and the cold autumn day.

"Stay, Monsieur le Marquis de Cevennes," he said, in a tone of suppressed passion, "you are too hasty in your conclusions. You have nothing to say to me. Granted! But I may have something to say to you—and I have a great deal to say to you, which must be said; if not in private, then in public—if not by word of mouth, I will print it in the public journals, till Paris and London shall ring with the sound of it on the lips of other men. You will scarcely care for this alternative, Monsieur de Cevennes, when you learn what it is I have to say. Your sang froid does you credit, monsieur; especially when, just now, though you could not repress a start of surprise at hearing that gentleman," he indicates Dr. Tappenden with a wave of his hand, "speak of a certain manufacturing town called Slopperton, you so rapidly regained your composure that only so close an observer as myself would have perceived your momentary agitation. You appear entirely to ignore, monsieur, the existence of a certain aristocratic emigrant's son, who thirty years ago taught French and mathematics in that very town of Slopperton. Nevertheless, there was such a person, and you knew him—although he was content to teach his native language for a shilling a lesson, and had at that period no cameo or emerald rings to twist round his fingers."

If the Marquis was ever to be admired in the whole course of his career, he was to be admired at this moment. He smiled a gentle and deprecating smile, and said, in his politest tone—

"Pardon me, he had eighteenpence a lesson—eighteenpence, I assure you; and he was often invited to dinner at the houses where he taught. The women adored him—they are so simple, poor things. He might have married a manufacturer's daughter, with an immense fortune, thick ancles, and erratic h's."

"But he did not marry any one so distinguished. Monsieur de Cevennes, I see you understand me. I do not ask you to grant me this interview in the name of justice or humanity, because I do not wish to address you in a language which is a foreign one to me, and which you do not even comprehend; but in the name of that young Frenchman of noble family, who was so very weak and foolish, so entirely false to himself and to his own principles, as to marry a woman because he loved, or fancied that he loved her, I say to you, Monsieur le Marquis, you will find it to your interest to hear what I have to reveal."

The Marquis shrugs his shoulders slightly. "As you please,"