"I refuse."
"Yet I shall reach her."
I took moss from my pocket and calked a seam with some precision. I did not speak.
"You think that I cannot reach her?"
I smiled. There was a womanish vein in the man that he should press me in this fashion for a useless answer. I began to see his weakness as well as his obvious strength. I waited till he asked yet again.
"You think that I shall not be able to reach your wife, monsieur?"
And then I shrugged and examined him over my pipe-bowl. "Yes, you will reach her, I think. You have a certain persistence that often wins small issues,—seldom large ones. But I shall not help you."
"I shall stay here till you go."
"Then we shall be companions for some time. May I offer you tobacco, monsieur?"
He smiled, though wryly and against his will. It was plain that we were taking a certain saturnine enjoyment out of the situation. We could hate each other well, and we were doing it, but we were both starved for men's talk,—the talk of equals.