Cartouche balanced on his heel, imperturbably conning the face of his old familiar. He saw enough there to detain him a reflective moment. The two had not met since their parting “Under the Porticoes.”
“Father Bonito,” said he; “I do not want to possess your mind. You can stick up a bill for a new tenant. I have grown a little particular in my tastes. In the meanwhile, I am only this hour returned to Turin, and greatly pressed for time. What, in a word, is this report, of which you speak and I know nothing?”
The doctor sprawled up his hands in feigned astonishment.
“Gods! I believe he really hasn’t heard it! and the very stones of the town babbling with it these days past. Not to have heard it—the one most interested, with myself—he hasn’t! I’m my own first suitor to his gratitude for this.”
“Well; the devil give you brevity!”
“No, no—one moment—stop! The Marchioness di Rocco, Mr Trix—ah!”
He withdrew a detaining hand, grinned, took off his hat, and mopped his forehead with a ropey clout, eying his halted prey the while.
“A long throw that, Monsieur,” he said; “yet it hooked you. But, to be sure, she’s a killing bait.”
Cartouche, just lifting his eyebrows, vouchsafed him no other answer. He knew his man—was steeling himself quietly against some blow which he felt was preparing, and which he saw would be designed to take him off his guard. Let Bonito, in that case, extract what satisfaction he could out of his manner.
In fact, when the stroke actually fell, his reception of it was so apparently unconcerned as even to deceive the doctor into a doubt of the effectiveness of his own home-thrust, and to aggravate his malice proportionately.