“Pelisson will not be back till to-morrow,” said Gaillard, thawing visibly as he flung a bundle of papers off a chair and took his seat at the table. “He has gone to Amiens.”
De Nani hid his satisfaction at this remark, as he unwired the champagne. Then the two, hobnobbing across the table, shared a Perigord pie, and conversation became general; it swiftly became indelicate, and then confidential.
“You are right,” said the Marquis, in answer to a remark dropped by his vis-à-vis. “Pelisson has his limitations—ahu!”
“Pelisson is a journalist, a recorder of this ill-written tragedy which we are condemned to act in, and which we call, for want of a better name, ‘life.’ Oh, this life that they are always prating about! A scoundrel only the other day accused me of insincerity to life. Could he have paid me a higher compliment?”
“No, egad. Ha! the infernal scamp said that, did he? What will you have?—they must have ‘copy’; that is the watchword of this villainous world, that stinks of printer’s ink. ‘Copy, copy’—I will give them some copy. A word in your ear, M. Gaillard.”
“I am all attention.”
“I feel safe in admitting you into my little secret, for you are a man of honor. I feel safe in admitting you into the secret of my little surprise, inasmuch as it concerns Pelisson, who is not your friend, M. Gaillard.”
“Have you heard him saying things about me?” asked Gaillard, who was under the fixed belief that one half of the world spent its existence in slandering his works to the other half.”
“I have heard him say——”
“Yes?”