So I sat there motionless in my chair.
When the marquis now addressed me it was in a very gentle tone indeed.
“Monsieur le capitaine,” said he, “I am sure you are at present in a much more reasonable frame of mind and that you understand perfectly at last the kind of people with whom you are dealing: just plain decent people like yourself—only a great deal older, and with lives, for that reason, necessarily more precious. Yes, that is the whole question, really: to safeguard, first of all, these marvelous, virtually immortal lives we three are living, and then, if, and so far as possible, to do something for you; just as we always do the best we can for the men and women who serve us in the manner I have explained. A simple situation, isn’t it? I am inclined to trust your sense of fair play, Monsieur le capitaine. You will admit that we have treated you considerately thus far, refraining from unseemly harshness even when you had tried our patience sorely. Our desire you see, is to regard you not as an enemy but as an ally, a co-worker, a friend. Fundamentally both you and we have the same object in view. That enables me, without further delay, to invite you to take a part in our deliberations. You have heard what has just been said. Unfortunately no workable plan seems to have come from it. I wonder whether you, perchance, can think of some egress from our difficulties?”
I beseech you—you who read these lines that I am writing, struggling perhaps to decipher the crude scrawling of this pencil now worn to the wood, bear me witness that my Adventure was a terrible adventure, fraught with a horror beyond humanity, beyond life. All that night long—it was my last night, remember—I was not my normal self, but rather like a dreamer caught in the terrors of some ghastly nightmare; and if I chanced, while groping in the depths of that abyss, to forget, for a moment, that I was a man, and was able to think, for a moment, of betraying the cause of Men, of Mortal Men, for the profit and comfort of the Men of Prey, the Ever-living Men, do you who read my full confession, measure my weakness with the measure of your own; and do not condemn me lightly!
Yes, of just that I was guilty! And any crime was in vain.
When the Marquis Gaspard had twice repeated his question: “Can you, perchance, think of some egress from our difficulties,” I, yes, I, André Narcy with lowered head and cheeks aflame, made answer. And I answered with these literal words:
“Monsieur, open your doors and let me depart in peace; and let Madame de X...., the girl I love, go also. Give me your word of honor as a gentleman that this lady will never again be called to this house; and I, for my part, will give my word of honor as a soldier, never to breath a word to living person, man or woman, free mason or priest, of anything that I have seen or heard here, or even of your existence!”
The Marquis Gaspard was on his feet almost before I had finished:
“Monsieur,” said he, with a wave of the hand, “I congratulate you! That is what I had been hoping to hear! Your proposal affords me unbounded satisfaction: I would fain see in it the beginning of a perfect understanding between us, with promise of the further success certain to spring from such perfect accord.”