Some way or other he had taken up position between the door and the stairs.... Oh, not with any sort of flash heroism—understand me. I am not giving you a feuilleton of melodrama. But there he put himself and there he stayed.
Of course that brute Bombiste had bristled at the first interruption. With a sign Zelie checked him short.... She was ready for Bibi-Ri. She had been waiting for Bibi-Ri. One knew it. One knew this to be their real meeting, and finally one knew who was and who had been his real opponent. Here the issue was joined. Between the dream and the girl—as you might say—here stood the Red Mark.
"You can't go on with it," he repeated in a voice, after all emotions, that had become almost matter of fact. "It is unthinkable. You will not touch those presents."
"I wonder if I won't," she answered.
"They were stolen from dead men—"
"Not so wicked as stealing heart and faith," she said.
"For this crime: worse than murder—"
"Not so bad as killing a soul given into your hand," she said.
"By a man the lowest of assassins!"
"Not so low," she said, "but that you claim his name, his blood and his fortune for your own!"