Several spoke together, excited and surprised, and every head was bent towards M. de la Bourbonais. Raymond moved his spectacles, and, fixing his dark gray eyes on Mr. Plover as the one who had directly challenged him, he said:
“Let us take an illustration. Suppose you entrust me with that costly diamond ring upon your finger, I having promised on my oath to carry it to a certain person and to keep its possession a secret. We will suppose that your life and your honor depend on its being delivered at its destination by me and at a given time. On my way thither I meet an assassin, who puts his pistol to my breast and says, ‘Deliver up your purse and a diamond which I understand you have on your person, or I shoot you and take them; but if you give me your word that you have not got it, I will believe you and let you go.’ Am I not justified, in order to save your honor and life and my own in answering, ‘No, I have not got the diamond’?”
“Certainly not!” cried Plover emphatically, bringing his jewelled hand down on the table with a crash.
“My dear sir!…” began some one; but Raymond echoed sharply:
“‘Certainly not!’ Just so. But suppose I draw my pistol and shoot the robber dead on the spot? God and the law absolve me; I have a right to kill any man who threatens my life or my property, or that of my neighbor.”
“You have! Undoubtedly you have!” said two or three, speaking together.
“And yet homicide is a greater sin than a lie!” cried Raymond. He was flushed and excited; his eye sparkled and his hand trembled as he pushed the glasses farther away, and leaned on the table, surveying the company with a glance that had something of triumph and something of defiance in it.
“Well done, Bourbonais!” cried Sir Simon. “You’ve not left Plover an inch of ground to stand on!”
“Closely reasoned,” said Mr. Langrove, with a dubious movement of the head; “but.…”
“Sophistry! a very specious bit of sophistry!” said Mr. Plover in a loud voice, drowning everybody else’s. “Comte and Rousseau and the rest of them in a nutshell.”