The man with the pointed beard sprang to his feet, quivering with righteous indignation. All southern Frenchmen like all other Latins, are magnificent actors. He shook one clenched hand in the air, his face was pale and his fine eyes glittered. Richard Hartley would have put himself promptly in an attitude of defence, but Ste. Marie nodded a smiling head in appreciation. He was half a southern Frenchman himself.
"Monsieur!" cried his visitor in a choked voice. "Monsieur, have a care! You insult me. Have a care, monsieur! I am dangerous. My anger when roused is terrible!"
"I am cowed!" observed Ste. Marie, lighting a cigarette. "I quail."
"Never," declaimed the gentleman from Marseille, "have I received an insult without returning blow for blow. My blood boils."
"The hundred francs, monsieur," said Ste. Marie, "will doubtless cool it. Besides, we stray from our sheep. Reflect, my friend! I have not insulted you. I have asked you a simple question. To be sure I have said that I knew your errand here was not—not altogether sincere; but I protest, monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself. The blame is your employer's. You have performed your mission with the greatest of honesty—the most delicate and faithful sense of honour. That is understood."
The gentleman with the beard strode across to one of the windows and leant his head upon his hand. His shoulders still heaved with emotion, but he no longer trembled. The terrible crisis bade fair to pass. Then abruptly, in the frank and open Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept with copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his cigarette and waited.
When at length the Marseillais turned back into the room he was calm once more, but there remained traces of storm and flood. He made a gesture of indescribable and pathetic resignation.
"Monsieur," he exclaimed, "you have a heart of gold. Of gold, monsieur! You understand. Behold us! two men of honour.
"Monsieur," he said, "I had no choice. I was poor. I saw myself face to face with the misère. What would you? I fell. We are all weak flesh. I accepted the commission of the pig who sent me here to you."
Ste. Marie smoothed the pink and blue banknote in his hands, and the other man's eye clung to it as though he were starving and the banknote food.