“He tweaked you well when he told you to wait, I see!”
Hector nodded, grimacing.
“To pull the hair, or tweak the ear, that was his Emperor’s habit, when he was in a good temper.... My father copies the habit, just as he carries Spanish snuff loose in the pockets of his buff nankeen vests and wears his right hand in the bosom—so!” He imitated the historic pose and went on: “He kept it there as he pinched and wrung with the left finger and thumb”—the speaker gingerly touched the martyred ear—“laughing all the time. I thought my ear would have come off, but I set my teeth and held my tongue.... Then he let go, and chucked me under the chin—another trick of the Emperor’s. ‘A sprig of the blood-royal for Luitpold’s blood-pudding! That is not a bad return! We shall have a fine Serene Highness presently for those good people of Widinitz.’ And he went away laughing and scattering snuff all over his vest and knee-breeches; he calls pantaloons ‘the pitiable refuge of legs without calves.’ Now, what did he mean by a Serene Highness for those good people of Widinitz?”
“I—am—not quite sure.” De Moulny pastured upon a well-gnawed finger-nail, pulled at his jutting underlip, and looked wise. “What I think he meant I shall not tell you now—! What I want you to do now is to swear to me, solemnly, that you will never touch a franc of that money.”
“I have promised.”
“A promise is good, but an oath is better.”
Hector began to laugh in a sheepish way, but de Moulny’s knobby forehead was portentous. That mass of gold, reclaimed from the coffers of the Convent of Widinitz seemed to him the untouchable thing; the taking it unpardonable—an act of simony his orthodox Catholic gorge rose at. So, as Hector looked at him, hesitating, he gnawed and glowered and breathed until he lost patience and hit the basket that held up the bedclothes with his fist, and whispered furiously:
“Swear, if you value my friendship! And I—I will swear, as you once asked me—remember, Redskin!—as you once asked me!—to be your friend through life—to the edge of Death—beyond Death if that be permitted!”
Ah me! It is never the lover who loves the more, never the friend whose friendship is the most ardent, who seeks the testing-proof of love or friendship, who demands the crowning sacrifice in return for the promise of a love that is never to grow cool, a loyalty that shall never fail or falter....