“You are not of the popular party?”
“Ah, monsieur, mon Dieu, monsieur! but I have a sense of humour remaining to me. For all that is serious I am a Feuillant.”
He spoke the last to deaf ears. Ned had fallen behind, blackly pondering.
“This David,” he muttered, “that heard Reveillon say the words, and that has haunted the St Antoine of late—this David.” And with the thought there was the man himself coming slowly on with the crowd past him. The Englishman planted his shoulder against the torrent and managed to sidle alongside the painter. He—M. Jacques-Louis David—carried a very enigmatical smile on his face, the physical malformation of which, however, served him for conscious misinterpreter of many moods. Now it expressed no disturbance over his contact with a person who had offended him.
“Good day,” said he.
“M. David,” said Ned, “I do not forget what enraged you with M. Reveillon in the Thuilleries gardens. I think you are a scoundrel, M. David!”
The other did not even start; much less did he condescend to refute the sudden charge; but he cocked his head evilly as he walked.
“Have you considered,” he said, “that if what you imply be true (which I do not admit), you are insulting a general in the presence of his bodyguard?”
“If what I imply be true,” retorted Ned hotly, “I can understand your indulging any brutal and contemptible vindictiveness.”
Perhaps, in his strenuous indignation, he might have struck at the vicious creature beside him; but the crowd, at that moment violently surging forward, swept him anywhere from his place and saved him the consequences of a foolish impulse.