"You 'ave not told me everyt'ing, Jeem 'Orton," And then, significantly, "About Madame—Madame 'Orton?"
He frowned and then went on with an assumption of carelessness.
"The situation was impossible, as you will see. I would have gone away——" he shrugged, "if Harry hadn't saved me the need of it. But now——"
He paused and clenched a fist. "He has much to answer to me for."
She was silent for a while, watching him.
"A coward! I might 'ave known," she murmured after a moment.
In the conversation that followed many things were revealed to Jim Horton, many things to Piquette. He learned from her own lips every detail of the story of Quinlevin's plot against the Duc and what was to be Moira's share in it, and he listened in anger and amazement. As to her relations with de Vautrin, she spoke with the utmost frankness. He was not a pleasant person, and to her mind, for all his money and position, possessed fewer virtues even than the outrageous Pochard and his crew, who at least were good-natured villains and made no pretenses. The Duc was stingy—cruel, self-obsessed and degenerate. Que ça m'embête ça! Why she had not cut loose from him and gone back to live in the Quartier she did not know, except that it was comfortable in the Boulevard Clichy and she was tired of working hard.
He found himself regarding Piquette with interest. The type was new to him, but he liked her immensely. She might betray her Duc, but in her own mind she would have perfectly adequate reasons for doing so.
As to Moira, little enough was said. If she suspected anything of his tenderness in that quarter she gave not a sign of it. But he could see that the facts as to his brother's marriage had come as a surprise to her.
"An' now, Jeem 'Orton," said Piquette the next morning, when he had strength enough to sit in a chair by the window, "what are you going to do about it?"