"She said that! 'He has been always right, hasn't he?'" Hanaud slowly resumed his seat, and sat like a man turned into stone. He looked up in a little while.
"What happened then?" he asked.
"Nothing until dinner was over. Then she picked up her letter and beckoned with her head to Miss Betty, who said to me: 'We shall have to leave you to take your coffee alone.' They went across the hall to Betty's room. The treasure-room. I was a little nettled. Ever since I have been in Dijon one person after another has pushed me into a corner with orders to keep quiet and not interfere. So I came to find you at the Grande Taverne."
At another moment Jim's eruption of injured vanity would have provoked Hanaud to one of his lamentable exhibitions, but now he did not notice it at all.
"They went away to talk that letter over together," said Hanaud. "And that young lady was pleased, she who was so distressed this afternoon. A way out, then!" Hanaud was discussing his problem with himself, his eyes upon the table. "For once the Scourge is kind? I wonder! It baffles me!" He rose to his feet and walked once or twice across the room. "Yes, I the old bull of a hundred corridas, I, Hanaud, am baffled!"
He was not posturing now. He was frankly and simply amazed that he could be so utterly at a loss. Then, with a swift change of mood, he came back to the table.
"Meanwhile, Monsieur, until I can explain this strange new incident to myself, I beg of you your help," he pleaded very earnestly and even very humbly. Fear had returned to his eyes and his voice. He was disturbed beyond Jim's comprehension. "There is nothing more important. I want you—how shall I put it so that I may persuade you? I want you to stay as much as you can in the Maison Crenelle—to—yes—to keep a little watch on this pretty Ann Upcott, to——"
He got no further with his proposal. Jim Frobisher interrupted him in a very passion of anger.
"No, no, I won't," he cried. "You go much too far, Monsieur. I won't be your spy. I am not here for that. I am here for my client. As for Ann Upcott, she is my countrywoman. I will not help you against her. So help me God, I won't!"
Hanaud looked across the table at the flushed and angry face of his "junior colleague," who now resigned his office and, without parley, accepted his defeat.