"If that is the case, I am, to my great regret, compelled to beg you to defer this conference for some hours."
"May I be permitted, without appearing impertinent, to ask you the motive of this delay, which, I admit, annoys me much?"
"Oh! Mon Dieu! I have no secrets from you, my dear sir, you know. The fact is, that I expect every moment the arrival of certain persons with whom I must, as soon as they come, have a conversation of the highest importance."
"Pardon, Seigneur Don Pablo, but these persons to whom you allude—I think I know them, by reputation at least; moreover, if I am well informed, I know on what subject their conversation with you will turn."
The black eye of Don Pablo Pincheyra darted a flashing look, which he immediately controlled, and he answered in a gentle and honeyed tone—
"And you infer from that, my dear Sir?—"
"I infer, Seigneur Don Pablo, that perhaps it would be best, in the general interest, that you consented to hear me first."
The painter, whose mind was made up, and who felt anger working within him, had become severe and sharp, and was resolved to push affairs to an extremity, whatever might be the consequences.
On his side, Don Pablo, under his feigned friendliness, concealed a resolution previously made, and from which nothing would make him depart. Between these two men who spoke thus—with a smile on their lips, but hatred, or at least anger, in their hearts—a strange scene was thus being enacted.
It was the partisan who renewed the conversation, which had been for a moment interrupted.