Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/200

 "As ever—indifferently well. I am fortunate in a way."

"Ye may well say that!"

Was there envy in the man's tone, or discontent? Chambret remarked the undernote, and was quick to divine what had evoked it. He had a comprehending eye that had not been slow to note the contrast between them. For it was great: Chambret, the sleek, faultlessly groomed gentleman of Paris, contented in his knowledge of an assured income from the rentes; O'Rourke, light of heart, but lean from a precarious living, at ease and courteous, but shabby, with a threadbare collar to his carefully brushed coat, and a roughly trimmed fringe, sawlike, edging his spotless cuff.

"You are—what do you say?—hard up?" queried Chambret bluntly.

O'Rourke caught his eye, with a glimmer of humorous deprecation. What need to ask? he seemed to say. Gravely he inspected the end of the commendable panetela, which he was enjoying by the grace of Chambret; and he puffed upon it furiously, twinkling upon his friend through a pillar of smoke.

"'Tis nothing new, at all, at all," he sighed. Chambret frowned. "How long?" he demanded. "Why have you not called upon me, mon ami, if you were in need?"

"Sure, 'twas nothing as bad as that. I—I am worrying along. There'll be a war soon, I'm hoping, and then the world will remember O'Rourke."

"Who will give the world additional cause to remember him," said Chambret, in the accents of firm conviction. "But why?" he cried abruptly, changing to puzzled protest. "Mon ami, you are an incomprehensible. If you would, you might be living the life of ease, husband to one of the richest and most charming women in France; Beatrix, Princesse—"