Page:Tales of Three Cities (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1884).djvu/104

92 in the midst of my efforts to be calm. He had picked up two or three stones and was tossing them into the river, making them skim the surface for a long distance. He held one poised a moment, turning his eye askance on me; then he let it fly, and it danced for a hundred yards. I wondered whether in what I had just said I broke my vow to Eunice; and it seemed to me that I didn't, inasmuch as I appeared to assume that no irreparable wrong had been done her.

"Do you wish yourself to get control of her property?" Mr. Caliph inquired, after he had made his stone skim. It was magnificently said, far better than anything I could do; and I think I answered it—though it made my heart beat fast—almost with a smile of applause.

"Are n't you afraid?" I asked in a moment, very gently.

"Afraid of what,—of you?"

"Afraid of justice—of Eunice's friends?"

"That means you, of course. Yes, I am very much afraid. When was a man not, in the presence of a clever woman?"

"I am clever; but I am not clever enough. If I were, you should have no doubt of it."

He folded his arms as he stood there before me, looking at me in that way I have mentioned more than once—like a genial Mephistopheles. "I must repeat what I have already told you, that I wish I had known you ten years ago!"