Moche had caught what Nini said. He stepped up boldly to Paulet, with outstretched hands, though the young man had not yet pocketed his weapon:
“There, you see, I trust you,” he declared. “I offer you my hand, mate, as a good comrade—shake, my man, we’ll fix up things yet.”
Paulet gave in. Ten minutes later, seated at the round table in M. Moche’s dining room, the advocate and his two visitors, Paulet and Nini, were just finishing a bottle of wine together.
They clinked glasses for the last time:
“Well, then,” demanded Paulet, “it’s a sure thing, Moche, old man, you’re going to help me?”
Moche, with a superb and impressive gesture, laid his heavy, hairy hand on Nini’s touzled curls, where she sat beside him:
“I swear it, on your lady-love’s glorious tresses, Paulet, and that’s as binding as the Blessed Sacrament!”
“All the same,” Paulet warned his mistress with an air at once peremptory and timid, “you’ll have to shut your jaw tight and not go gassing about the job in hand.”
Nini nodded, laid a finger on her lip, and with a shrug and a look of scorn:
“D’you really suppose,” she scoffed, “I should be such a silly goose as all that?”