Came Pédelaborde, and thrust a warty hand under Redskin’s elbow, as he stood frowning and pondering still, on the wide shallow doorstep of the Infirmary portico, brick-and-plaster Corinthian, elegant and chaste....
“Hé bien, mon ami; nous voilà reconciliés? A visit of sympathy, hein? It is quite proper! absolutely in rule.... But”—Pédelaborde’s little yellow eyes twinkled and glittered in his round brown face like a pair of highly-polished brass buttons, his snub nose cocked itself with an air of infinite knowingness, his bullet head of cropped black hair sparked intelligence from every bristle—“but—all the same, to call a spade a spade, saisissez? the trick that did the job for de Moulny is a dirty one. As an expert, I told you of it. As a gentleman, voyez?—I hardly expected you to use it!”
“A trick.... Use it!” Hector stuttered, and his round horrified stare would have added to de Moulny’s offense. “You don’t mean—you cannot believe that I——” He choked over the words.
Pédelaborde chuckled comfortably, thrusting his warty hands deep into the pockets of his baggy red serge breeches.
“Why, just as he lunged after his feint, didn’t you—hein? Plump!—in the act to riposte, and cleverly managed, too. Suppose he believes it a pure accident. I am not the fellow to tell tales.... Honor”—Pédelaborde extracted one of the warty hands on purpose to lay it upon his heart—“honor forbids. Now we’re on the subject of honor, I have positively pledged mine to pay Mère Cornu a trifling sum I owe her—a mere matter of eight francs—could you lend them until my uncle—hang the old skin-namalinks!—forks out with my allowance that is due?”
“I will lend you the money,” said Hector, wiping the sickly drops from his wet forehead. “But—I swear to you that was an accident—I slipped on a slug!” he added passionately. “Never dare to believe me capable of an act so vile!”
He had not had the heart to spend a franc of his own monthly allowance of two louis. He pulled the cash out of his pocket now; a handful of silver pieces, with one treasured napoleon shining amongst them, and was picking out the eight francs from the bulk, when, with a pang, the barbed memory of his oath drove home. Perhaps these coins were some infinitesimal part of that accursed dowry....
“Take it all!—keep it! I do not want it back!” he stammered hurriedly, and thrust the wealthy handful upon greedy Pédelaborde so recklessly that the napoleon and several big silver coins escaped that worthy’s warty clutches, and dropped, ringing and rolling and spinning, making a temporary Tom Tiddler’s ground of the Junior’s parade.
“Paid not to split! Saperlipopette!... Then there was no slug! He meant to do the thing!...”
Honest Pédelaborde, pausing even in the congenial task of picking up gold and silver, straightened his back to stare hard after the Redskin’s retreating figure, and whistle with indrawn breath, through a gap in his front teeth: “Phew-w!”