“I have to speak to you, sir, to speak to you, alone,” he announced, casting a thunderous glance at the old servant, but the latter never budged, waiting for his master’s orders.
Ascott resigned himself to the inevitable: “Go, John,” he ordered, “we wish to be alone.”
Hardly had the door closed behind the servant before Moche, throwing his calm and majestic manner to the winds, rushed up to the young Englishman and in a beseeching voice half choked with emotion, but nevertheless showing just a shade of menace, demanded:
“Sir, where is my niece, my child? what have you done with my sister’s child?”
Ascott shook in his shoes; just what he was fearing had occurred, and that at a time, at an hour in the morning, when he would have given all he possessed to be left in peace. He made a slight, nonchalant, evasive gesture, feigning he had never an inkling of the meaning of Père Moche’s question.
“Your niece,” he protested, “I know nothing of what has become of her; am I her keeper?”
But Moche broke in again. With rising passion the old business man shouted:
“You lie, sir; you have odiously abused my trust in you, abused the friendship I felt for you. Do not try to deny your guilt; I know all. To begin with, taking advantage of a moment’s negligence on my part, you locked yourself in alone with Nini in the private room where we all three dined, and like a very satyr, a perfect monster of vice, you were dastard enough to seduce my niece, poor child!”
Playing his odious comedy to perfection, the old fellow sank into a chair, and dropping his head between his hands, pretended to sob. In a piteous voice, he whined:
“Poor child! poor darling Nini, so gentle, so pure, so virtuous, what a hideous awakening must this have been for her. Oh! I can picture her despair and horror. It is frightful, maddening!”