Though he boasted, his quickened breathing betokened some degree of disturbance. His white hand was not steady as he took a handful of cigarettes from a jeweled box that stood upon the mantelshelf, selected one, and tossed the remainder of the handful into the maw of the red-hot fire, that swallowed the little paper tubes at a gulp. But his tone was mellifluous as he added, striking a match:
“Pray do not speak English so much.... M. de St. Arnaud is not familiar with the language.”
“His vocabulary being limited to ‘Goddam!’ ‘All right!’ and ‘How-do-you-do?’—phrases sufficient to equip a second-class actor for the part of stage Englishman in a vaudeville, but not,” said de Morny, still in the prohibited tongue, and smiling pleasantly at the lanky figure in the gorgeous uniform topped by the made-up face with the dyed mustaches and the hyacinthine locks that were false in patches—“not to guide the War Minister of a great Continental Power through the rocks and shoals of diplomatic conferences with representatives of other Powers. One will not fail to remember M. de St. Arnaud’s limitations. It will be well, my brother, if you will also. As for this decree, it may be necessary, but the moment is not ripe for it. It will do you injury, take my word for that!”
“My brother,” though inwardly nauseated by the unwelcome counsel, took it smilingly. He assumed his favorite pose, borrowed from the great Napoleon, his short right leg advanced, his chin turned at an acute angle, his left hand thrust behind the broad red ribbon, a finger hitched between two buttons of his tight-waisted general’s coat, and said with his most pompous air:
“M. de Morny, in answer to your objections to my proposed course of policy, I reply by dictating a Proclamation addressed by the President of the Republic to the French People. Be good enough to take your seat at the writing-table.”
De Morny obeyed. Monseigneur cleared his throat, and reeled off:
“Our country is upon the horns of a dilemma, in the throes of a crisis of the gravest. As her sworn protector, guardian and defender, I take the step necessary to her rescue and salvation—I withdraw from the Bank twenty-five millions of francs wrung from her veins by the masters who have betrayed her—I apply them as golden ointment to stanch her bleeding wounds.”
Said de Morny, with imperturbable gravity, speaking in the English language, as he selected a sheet of paper and dipped his pen in the ink:
“Article I. will provide that hereafter stealing is no robbery. Article II. should ordain that henceforth it is not murder to kill!”
The coldly-spoken words dropped one by one into a silence of consternation. St. Arnaud sat up; de Fleury dropped his cocked hat upon the carpet. Persigny grew pale underneath his rouge. Monseigneur alone maintained his urbane coolness, looking down his nose as he stroked his heavy brown mustache with the well-kept hand that, with all its feminine beauty, was so pitiless. Thus his blinking glance was arrested by the letter on the hearthrug. And a postscript that he had overlooked now caught his eye. He stooped, lifted the letter, and read, written in Walewski’s fine Italian script: