As he spoke, the viscount, with his small white hand, gave the poor devil a half-pistole, and he walked away, thanking Heaven for the lucky meeting.
"You were wrong, Monsieur le Vicomte, you were very wrong," said Pompée, a few steps farther on.
"Wrong, wrong! wherein, pray?"
"In giving that man a half-pistole. At night you should never admit that you have money about you; look you, wasn't it that coward's first cry that he hadn't a sou?"
"True," said the viscount, smiling; "but he's a coward, as you say, while we, as you also said, are fighting men, who fear nothing."
"Between being afraid and being suspicious, Monsieur le Vicomte, there is as great a distance as between fear and prudence. Now, it isn't prudent, I say again, to let a stranger whom you meet on the high-road see that you have money."
"Not when the stranger is alone and unarmed?"
"He may belong to an armed band; he may be only a spy sent forward to see how the land lies. He may return with a crowd, and what can two men, however brave they may be, do against a crowd?"
This time the viscount realized the reasonableness of Pompée's reproof, or rather, to cut the lecture short, pretended to admit his guilt, and they rode on until they reached the bank of the little river Saye, near Saint-Genès.