Left alone with me, and assured that we had no listeners, the monk was not slow in coming to the point.
‘You have thought over what I told you last night?’ he said brusquely, dropping in a moment the suave manner which he had maintained in M. Francois’s presence.
I replied coldly that I had.
‘And you understand the position?’ he continued quickly, looking at me from under his brows as he stood before me, with one clenched fist on the table. ‘Or shall I tell you more? Shall I tell you how poor and despised you were some weeks ago, M. de Marsac—you who now go in velvet, and have three men at your back? Or whose gold it is has brought you here, and made you, this? Chut! Do not let us trifle. You are here as the secret agent of the King of Navarre. It is my business to learn your plans and his intentions, and I propose to do so.’
‘Well?’ I said.
‘I am prepared to buy them,’ he answered; and his eyes sparkled as he spoke, with a greed which set me yet more on my guard.
‘For whom?’ I asked. Having made up my mind that I must use the same weapons as my adversary, I reflected that to express indignation, such as might become a young man new to the world, could, help me not a whit. ‘For whom?’ I repeated, seeing that he hesitated.
‘That is my business,’ he replied slowly.
‘You want to know too much and tell too little,’ I retorted, yawning.
‘And you are playing with me,’ he cried, looking at me suddenly, with so piercing a gaze and so dark a countenance that I checked a shudder with difficulty. ‘So much the worse for you, so much the worse for you!’ he continued fiercely. ‘I am here to buy the information you hold, but if you will not sell, there is another way. At an hour’s notice I can ruin your plans, and send you to a dungeon! You are like a fish caught in a net not yet drawn. It thrusts its nose this way and that, and touches the mesh, but is slow to take the alarm until the net is drawn—and then it is too late. So it is with you, and so it is,’ he added, falling into the ecstatic mood which marked him at times, and left me in doubt whether he were all knave or in part enthusiast, ‘with all those who set themselves against St. Peter and his Church!’