The Professor reeled back and was obliged to support himself upon the nearest chair.
“It wasn’t?”
“Trust me,” said the young man. “I was there, and I stole it.”
“You stole it—his money?” The Princess instantly flung herself on his bosom. “To save your beloved from ruin? Oh, how Christlike—how Dostoyevskian!” She addressed herself with streaming eyes to the Professor. “Oh, spare him, sir, for heaven’s sake spare him! What shall I do to avert your vengeance? Shall I prostitute myself in the streets of Cannes? I will do anything to atone to you for his heroic gesture in stealing your money—”
Taber Tring again put her gently aside. “Do drop it, Betsy. This is not a woman’s job. I stole that money in order to gamble with it, and I’ve got to pay it back, and all that I won with it too.” He paused and faced about on the Professor. “Isn’t that so, sir?” he questioned. “I’ve been puzzling over it day and night for the last two days, and I can’t figure it out any other way. Hard on you, Betsy, just as we thought our fortune was made; but my firm conviction, Professor Hibbart, as a man of New England stock, is that at this moment I owe you the sum of one million seven hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
“My God,” screamed the Professor, “what system did you play?”
Mr. Tring’s open countenance snapped shut like a steel trap. “That’s my secret,” he said politely; and the Professor had to acknowledge that it was.
“I must ask you,” the young man pursued, “to be good enough either to disprove or to confirm my estimate of my indebtedness to you. How much should you consider that you owed if you had stolen anybody’s money and made a lot more with it? Only the sum stolen or the whole amount? There’s my point.”
“But I did! I have!” cried the Professor.
“Did what?”