"Policy," commented Vicot briefly.
"Is the best honesty," supplemented Radwalader.
"He was daft on baccarat, and if he had to lose, why not to me as well as another? And a man who drowns himself for ten thousand francs isn't worth considering."
He crossed to the piano, and, seating himself, let his fingers stray up and down the keyboard through a maze of curiously intermingling minor chords. Then he began to hum softly, looking up, with his eyes half-closed, as if trying to recall the words. After a moment, he struck a final note, low in the bass, and, with his foot on the pedal, listened until the sound died down to silence.
"I want to know what you mean to do," reiterated Vicot obstinately.
"Well, you won't, and that's flat. The job is for you to take or leave, as you see fit. Only I want yes or no, and, after that, no more talk. I'm a hard man to make angry, but you've done it once to-day, and that's once too often for your good. Why, what are you thinking of, man? You've known me for five years. Did you ever see me hesitate or back down? Did you ever find a screw loose in my work, or so much as a scrap of paper to incriminate me? Did you ever know me to leave a footprint in the mud we've been through together—or let you leave one either, for that matter? A man like you would land in Mazas inside of a week, if he tinkered with business like mine, without a head like mine to guide him! Look here. You've been useful to me, Vicot, and, though you've been paid enough to make us quits, I'm not ungrateful to you in my own way. Continue to stick by me and I'll stick by you. Throw it all over, if you will, and you can go your way, with a handsome present to boot. But let me hear any more of such drivel as you've given me to-day, and, as God lives, my man, I'll smooch you off the face of the earth, as I'd smooch a green caterpillar off a page of my book! You'd be a smear of slime, my friend, and nothing more—and I'd turn the page, and go on reading!"
Radwalader had not raised his tone, as on the former occasion, or even risen, but his voice rasped the silence of the salon like a diamond on thin glass.
"Is it yes, or no?" he added.
Vicot swallowed the spirit in his glass, and looked across at him with his eyes watering and blinking.