Page:The Inheritors, An Extravagant Story.djvu/192

 "He ought to be shown the door," the Duc grumbled.

"Oh, as for that," she answered, "we couldn't. My aunt would be desolated by such a necessity. He is very influential in certain quarters. My aunt wants to catch him for the—He's going to write an article."

"He writes too many articles," the Duc said, with heavy displeasure.

"Oh, he has written one too many," she answered, "but that can be traversed . . ."

"But no one believes," the Duc objected. . . Radet's voice intermittently broke in upon his sotto voce, coming to our ears in gusts.

"Haven't I seen you . . . and then . . . and you offer me the cross . . . to bribe me to silence . . . me . . ."

In the general turning of faces toward the window in which stood Radet and the other, mine turned too. Radet was a cadaverous, weather-worn, passion-worn individual, badger-grey, and worked up into a grotesquely attitudinised fury of injured self-esteem. The other was a denationalised, shifty-eyed, sallow, grey-bearded governor of one of the provinces of the Système