“I am sorry, mon cher, but I have not a place to offer you.”
No place in a carriage that was as big as a house, and which five of them had come in!
Moessard gazed at him in stupefaction.
“I had, however, a few words to say to you which are very urgent. With regard to the subject of my note—you received it, did you not?”
“Certainly; and M. de Gery should have sent you a reply this very morning. What you ask is impossible. Twenty thousand francs! Tonnerre de Dieu! You go at a fine rate!”
“Still, it seems to me that my services—” stammered the beauty-man.
“Have been amply paid for. That is how it seems to me also. Two hundred thousand francs in five months! We will draw the line there, if you please. Your teeth are long, young man; you will have to file them down a little.”
They exchanged these words as they walked, pushed forward by the surging wave of the people going out. Moessard stopped:
“That is your last word?”
The Nabob hesitated for a moment, seized by a presentiment as he looked at that pale, evil mouth; then he remembered the promise which he had given to his friend: