“Your real name, please.”
“You mustn’t ask me that. I tell you, there are reasons . . .”
“Then it will be two hundred thousand francs.”
“Eh?” said Siméon, with a start. “I say, that’s a bit steep! I never heard of such a price.”
“You’re not obliged to accept,” replied Géradec, calmly. “We are discussing a bargain. You are free to do as you please.”
“But, look here, once you agree to fix me up a false passport, what can it matter to you whether you know my name or not?”
“It matters a great deal. I run an infinitely greater risk in assisting the escape—for that’s the only word—of a spy than I do in assisting the escape of a respectable man.”
“I’m not a spy.”
“How do I know? Look here, you come to me to propose a shady transaction. You conceal your name and your identity; and you’re in such a hurry to disappear from sight that you’re prepared to pay me a hundred thousand francs to help you. And, in the face of that, you lay claim to being a respectable man! Come, come! It’s absurd! A respectable man does not behave like a burglar or a murderer.”
Old Siméon did not wince. He slowly wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. He was evidently thinking that Géradec was a hardy antagonist and that he would perhaps have done better not to go to him. But, after all, the contract was a conditional one. There would always be time enough to break it off.