“I asked,” said Stevenson, “because if, being a countryman, he happened also to be a friend of yours, I shouldn’t want to repeat certain things. Most of the American drivers dislike him. They criticize him for not stopping when he knocked down that boy and broke his leg during practice the other morning. They say Giron couldn’t have known whether he killed him or not, and cared less. They say, too, that his manner is unbearable, conceited, and sneering.”
“But his work,” interrupted Lescault, impatiently,—“his driving, his skill, his nerve,—what of these things? Of the others I have heard.”
“His driving,” replied Stevenson, “is really wonderful. He’s a daredevil, cool, thorough, and skilled. The newspapers say nothing like his ability has ever been seen on the Vanderbilt Cup Course.”
“Damn the newspapers!” cried Lescault in a rage. “We’ll beat him. I tell you, we’ll beat him.”
As he slid up abruptly from the table and limped away, Stevenson noticed his eyes. In them was an expression that was not good to see.
Going to his room, Lescault locked the door behind him. He listened for a moment at the keyhole, and then; seizing his traveling-bag, emptied it on the bed. From a confusion of socks and shirts he rooted out a small tin box, set it aside, put back the bag, and composed himself on the edge of the bed. His slightest movement had become eager, stealthy. Holding the tin box on his knee, he patted it fondly. He produced a key, and chuckled as it grated in the lock. His hands were shaking as he threw back the cover and carefully took out the contents. Not gold or precious stones rolled out before him, not the hoard of a miser, the collection of a seeker of rare things, or the sacred relics of a family trust, but a heap of photographs! On the bed he spread them, arranged in some accustomed order, and as he bent over each his breath came with a low, hissing sound. His eyes, half shut, blazed queerly—eyes that looked not upon memoirs of love, but of hate.
It was a full minute before he moved. Then he snatched one of the photographs and held it from him, tearing the edges with his clenched hands. It was a full-length picture of a straight, soldierly looking man who might be called good looking were it not for the curl of his mouth. Below it was written:
“Léon Giron, taken upon his arrival in New York.”
As he gazed at the man’s straight and powerful figure, Lescault’s mutilated face became savage in its hate.
“And I’d have been like you, Léon Giron, if you’d played square,” he accused the picture. “I’d have been like you, with my body whole and young and vigorous. Bah!” He threw it from him and picked up another.