"A thousand pardons, monseigneur, for my indiscreet curiosity, but your godson is one of those persons in whom one is interested in spite of himself. Now, I am at your service."
"Then follow me, if you please, monsieur."
Pascal nodded his head in assent, and, walking side by side with the archduke, he reached the door of the study with him, then, stopping with a gesture of deference, which was only another impertinence, he bowed slightly, and said to the prince, as if his Highness had hesitated to enter first:
"After you, monseigneur, after you."
The prince understood the insolence, but swallowed it, and entered his study, making a sign to Pascal to follow him.
The latter, although unaccustomed to the ceremonial of the court, had too much penetration not to comprehend the import of his acts and words. He had not only the consciousness of his insolence, instigated by his recent and suppressed resentment, but this insolence he had actually studied and calculated, and even in his interview had considered the question of addressing his Royal Highness as monsieur, simply; but, by a refinement of intelligent impertinence, he thought the ceremonious appellation of monseigneur would render his familiarities still more disagreeable to the dignity and good breeding of the prince.
Let us turn back to an analysis of the character of Pascal,—a character less eccentric, perhaps, than it appears at first to be. Let us say, simply, that for ten years of his life this man, born in a humble and precarious position, had as a day-labourer and drudge submitted to the most painful humiliations, the most insolent domination, and the most outrageous contempt. Thus, bitter and implacable hatreds were massed together in his soul, and the day when, in his turn, he became powerful, he abandoned himself without scruple and without remorse to the fierce joy of reprisal, and it gave him little concern if his revenge fell upon an innocent head.
The archduke, instead of a superior mind, possessed a long, practical acquaintance with men, acquired in the exercise of supreme authority in the military hierarchy of his country; besides, in his second interview with M. Pascal,—at which interview we have assisted,—he had understood the significance of the studied insolence of this person, and when, as he entered his study with him, he saw him, without invitation, seat himself familiarly in the armchair just occupied by a prime minister, whom he found full of courtesy and deference, the prince felt a new and cruel oppression of the heart.
The penetrating glance of Pascal surprised the expression of this feeling on the face of the archduke, and he said to himself, with triumphant disdain: "Here is a prince born on the steps of a throne, a cousin, at least, of all the kings of Europe, a generalissimo of an army of a hundred thousand soldiers, here he is in all the glory of his battle uniform, adorned with all the insignia of honour and war. This highness, this man, despises me in his pride of a sovereign race. He hates me because he has need of me, and knows well that he must humiliate himself; nevertheless, this man, in spite of his contempt, in spite of his hatred, I hold in my power, and I intend to make him feel it keenly, for to-day my heart is steeped in gall."