ed their effect, "you are a Provencal, and I a Gascon. You have a
quick hand, comrade--"

"But, by Jove! you are the one who has the quick hand; you struck me
with your whip as if I had been a horse. You have put my eye almost
out. Do you imagine that I am well provided for like yourself and have
nothing to do but to flirt with girls? I need my eyes in order to work,
by God! Because you are a bourgeois and I am a workman--"

"I am not more of a bourgeois than you," replied the artist, rather glad
to see his adversary's fury exhaust itself in words, and his attitude
assume a less threatening character; "pick up your compass and return
to your work. Here," he added, taking two five-franc pieces from his
pocket. "You were a little boorish and I a little hasty. Go and bathe
your eyes with a glass of wine."

Lambernier scowled and his eyes darted ugly, hateful glances. He
hesitated a moment, as if he were thinking what he had better do, and
was weighing his chances of success in case of a hostile resolve. After
a few moments' reflection, prudence got the better of his anger. He
closed his compass and put it in his pocket, but he refused the silver
offered him.

"You are generous," said he, with a bitter smile; "five francs for each
blow of the whip! I know a good many people who would offer you their
cheek twelve hours of the day at that price. But I am not one of that
kind; I ask nothing of nobody."

"If Leonardo da Vinci could have seen this fellow's face just now,"
thought the artist, "he would not have had to seek so long for his model
for the face of Judas. Only for my poniard, my fate would have been
settled. This man was ready to murder me."

"Listen, Lambernier," said he, "I was wrong to strike you, and I would
like to atone for it. I have been told that you were sent away from
the chateau against your will. I am intimate enough with Monsieur de
Bergenheim to be useful to you; do you wish me to speak to him for you?"

The carpenter stood motionless in his place, with his eyes fixed upon
his adversary while the latter was preparing his horse to mount, eyes
which seemed filled with hatred to their very depths. His face suddenly
changed its expression and became abjectly polite when he heard himself
addressed anew. He shook his head two or three times before replying.

"Unless you are the very devil," he said, "I defy you to make this
gentleman say yes when he has once said no. He turned me away like a
dog; all