Monsieur de Granville turned to him with a look of satisfaction.
“Then ask him,” Corentin went on, “if I have not full power to snatch you from the degrading position in which you stand, and to attach you to me.”
“It is quite true,” said Monsieur de Granville, watching the convict.
“Really and truly! I may have absolution for the past and a promise of succeeding to you if I give sufficient evidence of my intelligence?”
“Between two such men as we are there can be no misunderstanding,” said Corentin, with a lordly air that might have taken anybody in.
“And the price of the bargain is, I suppose, the surrender of those three packets of letters?” said Jacques Collin.
“I did not think it would be necessary to say so to you——”
“My dear Monsieur Corentin,” said Trompe-la-Mort, with irony worthy of that which made the fame of Talma in the part of Nicomede, “I beg to decline. I am indebted to you for the knowledge of what I am worth, and of the importance you attach to seeing me deprived of my weapons—I will never forget it.
“At all times and for ever I shall be at your service, but instead of saying with Robert Macaire, ‘Let us embrace!’ I embrace you.”
He seized Corentin round the middle so suddenly that the other could not avoid the hug; he clutched him to his heart like a doll, kissed him on both cheeks, carried him like a feather with one hand, while with the other he opened the door, and then set him down outside, quite battered by this rough treatment.