FRANCIS (in a conciliating tone). Come, my good friend, be discreet, and do not prove faithless.
HERMANN. Pshaw! To expose a wretch like you is here the best discretion—to keep faith with you would be an utter want of sense. Faith? with whom? Faith with the prince of liars? Oh, I shudder at the thought of such faith. A very little timely faithlessness would have almost made a saint of me. But patience! patience! Revenge is cunning in resources.
FRANCIS. Ah, by-the-by, I just remember. You lately lost a purse with a hundred louis in it, in this apartment. I had almost forgotten it. Here, my good friend! take back what belongs to you. (Offers him a purse).
HERMANN (throws it scornfully at his feet). A curse on your Judas bribe! It is the earnest-money of hell. You once before thought to make my poverty a pander to my conscience—but you were mistaken, count! egregiously mistaken. That purse of gold came most opportunely—to maintain certain persons.
FRANCIS (terrified). Hermann! Hermann! Let me not suspect certain things of you. Should you have done anything contrary to my instructions—you would be the vilest of traitors!
HERMANN (exultingly). Should I? Should I really? Well then count, let me give you a little piece of information! (Significantly.) I will fatten up your infamy, and add fuel to your doom. The book of your misdeeds shall one day be served up as a banquet, and all the world be invited to partake of it. (Contemptuously.) Do you understand me now, my most sovereign, gracious, and excellent master?
FRANCIS (starts up, losing all command of himself). Ha! Devil! Deceitful impostor! (Striking his forehead.) To think that I should stake my fortune on the caprice of an idiot! That was madness! (Throws himself, in great excitement, on a couch.)
HERMANN (whistles through his fingers). Wheugh! the biter bit!—
FRANCIS (biting his lip). But it is true, and ever will be true—that there is no thread so feebly spun, or which snaps asunder so readily, as that which weaves the bands of guilt!—
HERMANN. Gently! Gently! Are angels, then, superseded, that devils turn moralists?