“Yet, I fancy, the correct one.”
“Where did you learn it? From the Countess?”
“Perhaps.”
Gastineau drew in his breath sharply through his clenched teeth. “Very well. And so we are going to fight. My last piece of advice to my apt pupil,” he sneered, “might be to consider the consequences of joining issue with a man who, he knows, never submits to defeat, who, he might imagine, will let nothing stand in his way, even a life, when once his resolve is taken.”
“I quite understand that; it needs no effort of the imagination,” Herriard retorted, as for a moment his temper and his repugnance for the man who, with such glib assurance, stood threatening him, got the better of his restraint.
The slight hit told. The only question was whether it had not been a chance one from a bow drawn at a venture. Into Gastineau’s eyes there sprang that fierce look of piercing enquiry which was characteristic of the man’s avid mind. “You know that,” he snarled, the effort at sneering coolness ousted by the obtrusion of a dark suspicion. “You know that,” he repeated insolently, “do you?”
But the other man was now on his guard. “Evidently, by your own showing, I ought to believe you capable of anything,” he answered, with almost a sneer bred of his consciousness of power in reserve.
“You meant more than that,” Gastineau insisted.
“Could I mean more than that?” came the obvious retort.
Gastineau for a moment was silent. Only his fierce eyes seemed to scorch into Herriard’s mind, to read the working of his secret soul.