Reitzei became a little uneasy, or perhaps only impatient.
"Well, Calabressa," he said, "one must be getting along to one's affairs—"
"Oh yes, yes, truly," Calabressa said. "I only wished to know a little more about the Cardinal. You see he cannot
give himself up like Mesentskoff, though he might confess to a hundred worse things than the Russian ever did. Provana—well, you know the Society has always been inexorable with regard to its own officers: and rightly, too, Reitzei, is it not so? If one finds malversation of justice among those in a high grade, should not the punishment be exemplary? The higher the power, the higher the responsibility. You, for example, are much too shrewd a man to risk your life by taking any advantage of your position as one of the officers—"
"I don't understand you, Calabressa," the other said, somewhat hotly.
"I only meant to say," Calabressa observed, carelessly, "that the punishment for malversation of justice on the part of an officer is so terrible, so swift, and so sure, that no one but a madman would think of running the risk—"
"Yes, but what has that to do with me?" Reitzei said, angrily.
"Nothing, my dear friend, nothing," said Calabressa, soothingly. "But now, about this selection of Mr. Brand—"
Reitzei turned rather pale for a second; but said instantly, and with apparent anger,
"I tell you that is none of my business. That is Mr. Lind's business. What have I to do with it?"