Murguía gasped, yet not so much to find himself a prisoner, as to find himself mistaken in the American.
“Now maybe,” Driscoll suggested, “maybe you’ll be wondering yourself why you bring your dirty little affairs to me? 431Lopez may be an open book, but you seem to’ve read me wrong. Prob’bly the language is foreign.”
Murguía’s jaw dropped, and he gaped as one who beholds the collapse of high towering walls. It was his system of life, of motives calculated, of humanity weighed. It was the whole fabric of hate and passions which quivered and crashed and flattened in a chaos of dust before his wildly staring eyes.
“You mean, señor, you mean you do not want–as well, as I!–to bring to his end this libertine, this thief of girlhood, this prince who scatters death, who scatters shame, this–this––”
“Man alive, you’re screaming! Stop it!”
With his nails the old man combed the froth from his lips.
“But you too have cause,” he cried, “cause not so heavy, but cause enough, as well as I! There was my daughter, my little girl! With you there is that French wo––”
He stopped, for he thought he heard the sharp click of teeth. But Driscoll was only grave.
“Well, go on,” he said. “But–speak for your daughter only.”
“I can’t go on. I won’t go on,” Murguía burst out desperately, and flung up his arms. “If you don’t understand already, then I can’t make you. It’s useless. A book? You’re a stone! But any other, who had a heart for suffering, in your place would––”