Johnson was deeply interested. He leaned across the table. His little black eyes were alight with cupidity.
“Who can tell?” he murmured. “It might be two, perhaps three, four thousand English pounds a year. Eh?”
Stephen Hurd laughed scornfully.
“Four thousand a year!” he repeated. “Bah! She fooled you all to some purpose! Her income is—listen—is forty thousand pounds a year! You hear that, my friend? Forty thousand pounds a year!”
The little man’s face was a study in varying expressions. He leaned back in his chair, and then crouched forward over the table. His beady eyes were almost protruding, a spot of deeper colour, an ugly purple patch, burned upon his cheeks. The words seemed frozen upon his lips. Twice he opened his mouth to speak and said nothing.
Stephen Hurd took off his hat and placed it upon the table before him. His listener’s emotion was catching.
“Forty thousand pounds,” he said softly, “livres you call it! It is a great fortune. She has deceived you, too! You must make her pay for it.”
Johnson was recovering himself slowly. His voice when he spoke shook, but it was with the dawn of a vicious anger!
“Yes!” he muttered, speaking as though to himself, “she has deceived us! She must pay! God, how she must pay!”
His fingers twitched upon the table. He was blinking rapidly.