His voice, though not his words, seemed to reach Mr. Duval's ears, for he turned, and stared hazily across the room. A smile that closely resembled a leer curled his mouth, and picking up his glass he made his way between the tables to the window, and stood leaning his hand on the back of a chair, and looking down at Charles. "So! The gentleman who dares to live in the haunted house, not?" He shook with laughter, and raising his glass unsteadily, said: "Voyons! a toast! Le Moine!"
Charles was watching him under frowning brows. He went on chuckling to himself, and his eyes travelled from Charles' face to Peter's. "You do not drink? You do not love him, our Monk?" He pulled the chair he held out from the table, and collapsed into it. "Eh bien! You do not speak then? You do not wish to talk of Le Moine? Perhaps you have seen him, no?" He paused; he was sprawling half-way across the table, and the foolish look in his eyes was replaced by a keener more searching gleam. "But you have not seen his face," he said with a strange air of quite sudden seriousness. "There is no one has ever seen his face, not even I, Louis Duval!"
"Quite so," said Charles. "I haven't. Do you want to?"
A look of cunning crept into the artist's face. He smiled again, a slow, evil smile that showed his discoloured teeth. "I do not tell you that. Oh, no! I do not tell you that, my friend. But this I tell you: you will never see his face, but you will go away from that house which is his, that house where he goes, glissant, up and down the stairs, though you do not see, where he watches you, though you do not know. Yes, you will go. You will go." He fell to chuckling again.
"Why should we go?" Peter asked calmly. "We're not afraid of ghosts, you know!"
The artist swayed with his insane giggling. "But Le Moine is not like other ghosts, my friend. Ah non, he is not - like - other ghosts!"
The landlord had crossed the room, and now threw an apologetic glance at Peter. But he spoke to the artist. "You'd like your usual table, moossoo, wouldn't you? You'll take your lunch in the coffee-room, I daresay, and there's as nice a leg of lamb waiting as ever I saw."
The artist turned on him with something of a snarl. "Away, cattle! You think you can tell me what I shall do and what I shall not do, but it is not so!"
"I'm sure, sir, I never had no such idea, but your lunch'll be spoiled if you don't come to eat it, and I've got some of the green peas cooked the French way you like."
"I do not eat in this plaice, where you cook food fit for pigs. Yes, you wish that I go, but I do not go till I choose, and you dare not speak, my gross one, for me. I am Louis Duval, and there is not another in the world can do what I do! Is it not so? Hein? Is it not so?"