"Señor Frenchman," pursued he, knitting his eyebrows, and with a somewhat threatening tone, "take care how you penetrate my secrets before I should wish you to know them. For two months that we have lived together you have been, I suppose, in a position to know me. It will not be well, believe me, to try and mix yourself up, against my will, in my affairs."
"You would do well to speak thus if these affairs concerned you alone; but as, unhappily, I find myself concerned in them, they are as much mine as yours."
"I do not understand you."
"Are you quite sure of that?" asked the young man, with an ironical smile.
"Come, explain yourself frankly and honourably, as a man, instead of prating like an old woman," pursued the partisan, beginning to be angry.
"It is two months," resumed the young man, "that we have lived together, as you yourself have said. What have you done during these two months? How have you kept the promise you made me?"
"Have I not saved the two ladies, as I promised, from the peril that threatened them?"
"Yes, but to make them fall into one still worse."
"I do not understand you, Señor."
"There are none so deaf as those who do not wish to hear. You understand me very well Unhappily for you, you have not yet reached the point where you think you are. I have sworn to defend these poor ladies, and I will defend them, if it is at the peril of my life."