“Now,” said Tantaine, “I came here with a really magnificent proposal. But I adopted the course I pursued because I wished to prove to you that you belonged more absolutely to Mascarin than did your wretched foreign slaves to you. You are absolutely at his mercy, and he can crush you to powder whenever he likes.”
“Your Mascarin is Satan himself,” muttered the discomfited man. “Who can resist him?”
“Come, as you think thus, we can talk sensibly at last.”
“Well,” answered Perpignan ruefully, as he adjusted his disordered necktie, “say what you like, I have no answer to make.”
“Let us begin at the commencement,” said Tantaine. “For some days past your people have been following a certain Caroline Schimmel. A fellow of sixteen called Ambrose, a lad with a harp, was told off for this duty. He is not to be trusted. Only a night or two ago one of my men made him drunk; and fearing lest his absence might create surprise, drove him here in a cab, and left him at the corner.”
The ex-cook uttered an oath.
“Then you too are watching Caroline,” said he. “I knew well that there was some one else in the field, but that was no matter of mine.”
“Well, tell me why you are watching her?”
“How can you ask me? You know that my motto is silence and discretion, and that this is a secret intrusted to my honor.”
Tantaine shrugged his shoulders.