“One might be so with less cause. You are aware, sir, that the employees have assumed a very threatening attitude?”
“Well! Are you afraid?”
“No, indeed, sir, not for myself, at any rate!”
“For whom, then?”
“For yourself, sir. When I left Paris M. Baradier gave me precise orders to protect you from all harm. If anything were to happen I should not know what to do. That is what agitates me, as you say, sir.”
“There is nothing to do, Baudoin, except wait.”
“I beg your pardon, sir, there is something far preferable to that—that is, to take the first train back to Paris.”
“And leave my father’s works exposed to the violence of his workmen?”
“M. Baradier’s works are doubtless very precious, but not so precious as his son.”
“Do not be uneasy, Baudoin; no one will harm either the son or the works. The deuce! Are there no laws in existence? The people of Ars are not savages.”