The handsome Maze dropped the tails of his coat, and began to stroke his mustache. "I know that you ordinarily succeed in all that you undertake. I have done wrong to speak of you. Besides, we were speaking of old Savon's children, and not of yours, as you haven't any. Now since you succeed in all your enterprises, it is evident that, if you do not have children, it is because you do not want them."
"What business is it of yours?" demanded Lesable sharply.
At this provoking tone Maze in his turn raised his voice: "Hold on! what do you take me for? Try to be polite, or I'll settle you!"
Lesable trembled with anger, and losing all self-control, replied: "Monsieur Maze, I am not, like you, a great booby, or a great coxcomb. And I forbid you ever to speak to me again. I care neither for you nor your kind." And he threw a look of defiance at Pitolet and Boissel.
Maze suddenly understood that true force is in calmness and irony, but wounded in his most vulnerable part—his vanity—he wished to strike his enemy to the very heart, and replied in the protecting tone of a benevolent well-wisher, but with rage in his eyes: "My dear Lesable, you pass all bounds. But I understand your vexation. It is pitiful to lose a fortune, and to lose it for so little, for a thing so easy, so simple. If you wish, I will do you this service myself, for nothing, out of pure friendship. It is only an affair of five minutes—"
He was still speaking when Lesable hurled the inkstand of old Savon full at his head.
A flood of ink covered his face and metamorphosed him into a negro with surprising rapidity. He sprang forward, rolling the whites of his eyes, with his hands raised ready to strike. But Cachelin covered his son-in-law, and grasping Maze by the arms pushed him aside, and, after pounding him well, dashed him against the wall. Maze disengaged himself with a violent effort, and rushed through the door, crying to the two men: "You shall soon hear from me!" Pitolet and Boissel followed him.
Boissel explained his moderation by declaring he should have killed some one if he had taken part in the struggle.
As soon as he entered his room Maze endeavoured to remove the stain, but without success. The ink was violet, and was indelible and ineffaceable. He stood before his glass furious and disconsolate, rubbing savagely at his face with a napkin rolled in a knot. He obtained only a richer black, mixed with red, the blood coming to the surface with the friction.
Boissel and Pitolet strove to advise and console him. One suggested the application of pure olive oil, the other prescribed a bath of ammonia. The office boy was sent to ask the advice of a chemist. He brought back a yellow liquid and pumice stone, which was used with no result.