"Is it to be imagined that you cannot receive letters?"
Faber leaned over the table, and began to speak with some warmth.
"See here," he said, "you're a Minister of Artillery in Paris. You receive, I suppose, some three or four hundred letters a day? Can you be responsible for them all?"
"But this was sent to you privately at your hotel."
"A foolish kind of letter at the best—I remember every word of it. You admit in so many words that our deal is for forty thousand francs, and stipulate that Captain Clearnay must have ten. Why couldn't you come round to me and say so?"
"I was three times at the hotel that day; you were absent on each occasion. It was urgent that Clearnay should be dealt with if the contract was to go through."
"Exactly what this newspaper man says. He calls it a second Ollivier case, I see. Well, I shouldn't wonder if it made as much noise."
D'Arny tortured himself into new attitudes.
"Good God!" he cried. "Don't you see my position?"
"Perfectly. I saw it from the beginning. You'll have to leave Paris awhile."