“But it doesn’t stump me,” grunted Le Sage. “He’s got no head-piece.”
“You’re wrong there, Le Sage, if you’ll excuse my saying so. Head-piece is just what he has got. Too much of it perhaps.”
And the speaker had his reward in Lalanté’s kindling face and grateful glance; and the friendship between them ripened apace.
Warren was playing his game boldly and with depth. He could afford to praise the absent one, being as firmly convinced that that fortunate individual would never return as that he himself was alive and prosperous. And he meant it too. There was no pretence in his tone. He had no personal animus against Wyvern for occupying the place with regard to Lalanté which should have been his. Wyvern stood in his way, that was all, and—he must be got out of it. That he would be got out of it Warren, as we have said, had no doubt whatever, and then—after an interval, a time-healing interval, to whom would Lalanté listen and turn more readily than to Wyvern’s best friend? Herein Warren was true to himself—i.e. Number 1.
Now, on their stroll down to the river the topic of the absent one had come up; his coolness and courage upon one or two occasions when call had arisen for the exercise of those valuable attributes—and here on the bank, after the first comments upon the scene before them, the topic was revived.
“I wonder why women are always such blind worshippers of mere pluck,” Warren remarked.
“But you wouldn’t have us hold cowardice in respect, would you?”
“You can’t respect a negative—and cowardice is a negative.”
“Well then, a man who is a coward?”
“Why not? I know at least two men who are that, and I happen to hold them in some considerable respect. That astonishes you, does it?”