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Rh not his face showed me the improvement in his temper, his first words after we left the premises of the inn (at a quarter past five exactly) would have declared it; for he turned to me and said:

“Look here, Mr. Aycon. You’re running a great risk for nothing. Be a sensible man. Go back to Avranches, thence to Cherbourg, and thence to where you live—and leave me to settle my own affairs.”

“Before I accept that proposal,” said I, “I must know what ‘your own affairs’ include.”

“You’re making a fool of yourself—or being made a fool of—which you please,” he assured me; and his face wore for the moment an almost friendly look. I saw clearly that he believed he had won the day. The old lady had managed to make him think that—by what artifice I knew not. But what I did know was that I believed not a jot of the insinuation he was conveying to me, and had not a doubt of the truth, and sincerity of Marie Delhasse.

“The best of us do that sometimes,” I answered. “And when one has begun, it is best to go through.”

“As you please. Have you ever practiced with your left hand?”

“No,” said I.

“Then,” said he, “you’ve not long to live.”

To do him justice, he said it in no boasting way, but like a man who would warn me, and earnestly.

“I have never practiced with my right either,” I remarked. “I think I get rather a pull by the arrangement.”