The stranger needed no second invitation. He presented himself. He was a small man, with a sallow and bloodless face, a black beard closely trimmed, a moustache allowed to grow its natural length, and dark, opaque, impassive eyes. He was rather showily dressed, and wore a pince-nez.
For a second he paused at the door to take out his card-case; then, without uttering a word, he stepped forward and placed his card on the table. Vincent was rather surprised at this form of introduction; but of course he took up the card. He read thereon. 'Mr. Joseph de Lara.'
"Oh, really," said he (but what passed through his mind was—'Is that confounded woman going to persecute me on shore as well as at sea?'). "How do you do? Very glad to make your acquaintance."
"Oh, indeed, are you?" the other said, with a peculiar accent, the like of which Vincent had never heard before. "Perhaps not, when you know why I am here. Ah, do not pretend!—do not pretend!"
Vincent stared at him, as if this were some escaped lunatic with whom he had to deal.
"Sir, I am here to call you to account," said the little foreigner, in his thick voice. "It has been the scandal of the whole ship—the talk of all the voyage over—and it is an insult to me—to me—that my wife should be spoken of. Yes, you must make compensation—I demand compensation—and how? By the only way that is known to an Englishman. An Englishman feels only in his pocket; if he does wrong, he must pay; I demand from you a sum that I expend in charity——"
Vincent who saw what all this meant in a moment, burst out laughing—a little scornfully.
"You've come to the wrong shop, my good friend!" said he.
"What do you mean? What do you mean?" the little dark man exclaimed, with an affectation of rising wrath: "Look at this—I tell you, look at this!" He drew from his pocket one of the photographs which had been taken on board the steamer, and smacked it with the back of his hand. "Do you see that?—the scandal of the whole voyage! My wife compromised—the whole ship talking—you think you are to get off for nothing? No! No! you do not! The only punishment that can reach you is the punishment of the pocket—you must pay."
"Oh, don't make a fool of yourself!" said Vincent, with angry contempt. "I've met members of your profession before. But this is too thin."