"It's awfully good of you to tell me these things," he said, "and I'm mighty proud of one thing! Do you know that I made my father cry? I did, for a fact! 'The Man of Bronze,' some one told me they call him! I managed to glance at him a couple of times, and I'm sure he was crying!
"Now, that's a success, you know! For a young fellow like me to make the presiding judge of another criminal court cry over his first speech is pretty good, whether the young lawyer is the judge's son or not!
"My, but I was nervous! That poor woman completely upset me. You remember when she called out and nearly fainted?"
The others nodded.
"Yes," said Noel. "You turned around and looked up and spoke to her, I think."
"Exactly!" Raymond rattled on, excitedly. "I put my hand on the edge of the rail and she took hold of it, and pressed it, and—do you know, I forgot all about my speech, and everything else? It's a fact! She looked at me in the most extraordinary way!"
He paused a moment and then went on soberly, with a vague, puzzled look in his dark eyes.
"She drew me toward her, somehow. I don't know how to explain it to you. I wanted to take her in my arms and console her and kiss her—yes, kiss her! Kind of foolish, eh?" he added, with a quick smile. "Queer sort of a lawyer who'd want to kiss his clients, isn't it? But I swear that's what I did want! It was one of the most extraordinary sensations I have ever felt, and it upset me so that I caught myself talking for a full minute without knowing what I was saying. Luckily, I sort of got hold of myself, and—and—I'm almighty glad it's all over. Ah, here comes the President of the Toulouse court!"
His few minutes in M. Valmorin's office had partially restored Floriot's steel nerves. He took a drink of water and gently put aside the prosecutor's solicitous questions, and then he hurried out to find his son, knowing that the boy would feel hurt if he was not among the first to congratulate him. But his white, lined face and haggard eyes bore witness to the terrible suffering of the recent ordeal.
Raymond hastened forward a few steps to meet him.