“Oh, no, no, no, my friend. Petras Tetarnis is not the man to run such perils. He has made much money, since the French have come to Casablanca. He is a prudent one. It would have to be a very dark night and a very empty street before Tetarnis risked his beautiful money and all the enjoyment he gets from it; and even then some one else would have to do the work. But he will use other ways.”
“What kind of ways?” asked Paul.
Henriette shrugged her shoulders.
“He is always here. He is rich. Madame Delagrange makes much of him. Very likely he has lent her money, and if so, he will want his interest.”
“I see.”
Paul leaned back in his chair and Henriette looked at him curiously.
“You were much moved, my friend, when I spoke of the big, coarse hands gripping that little throat.”
“Well, any man would be, and whoever the woman,” he protested, and Henriette smiled her disbelief.
“Would you have been so moved if it had been my throat which you thought to be in danger?” she asked shrewdly. “No! Let us be frank. You would have said, ‘It is Henriette’s business to look after herself. She is old enough, anyway’; and you would have forgotten me the next moment.” She turned her eyes again upon Marguerite Lambert.
“The grand passion. Oh, la, la, la! Until it comes nothing, oh, but nothing at all for any one—not half a heart beat! But when it does come, everything, at once, with both hands. The folly!”