LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER XXI

      THE CUTTING OF THE TELEPHONE WIRES

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      The door opened, and in came Charolais, bearing a tray.

      "Here's your breakfast, master," he said.

      "Don't call me master—that's how his men address Guerchard. It's a disgusting practice," said Lupin severely.

      Victoire and Charolais were quick laying the table. Charolais kept up a running fire of questions as he did it; but Lupin did not trouble to answer them. He lay back, relaxed, drawing deep breaths. Already his lips had lost their greyness, and were pink; there was a suggestion of blood under the skin of his pale face. They soon had the table laid; and he walked to it on fairly steady feet. He sat down; Charolais whipped off a cover, and said:

      "Anyhow, you've got out of the mess neatly. It was a jolly smart escape."

      "Oh, yes. So far it's all right," said Lupin. "But there's going to be trouble presently—lots of it. I shall want all my wits. We all shall."

      He fell upon his breakfast with the appetite but not the manners of a wolf. Charolais went out of the room. Victoire hovered about him, pouring out his coffee and putting sugar into it.

      "By Jove, how good these eggs are!" he said. "I think that, of all the thousand ways of cooking eggs, en cocotte is the best."

      "Heavens! how empty I was!" he said presently. "What a meal I'm making! It's really a very healthy life, this of mine, Victoire. I feel much better already."

      "Oh, yes; it's all very well to talk," said Victoire, in a scolding tone; for since he was better, she felt, as a good woman should, that the time had come to put in a word out of season. "But, all the same, you're trying to kill yourself—that's what you're doing. Just because you're young you abuse your youth. It won't last for ever; and you'll be sorry you used it up before it's time. And this life of lies and thefts and of all kinds of improper things—I suppose it's going to begin all over again. It's no good your getting a lesson. It's just thrown away upon you."

      "What I want next is a bath," said Lupin.

      "It's all very well your pretending not to listen to me, when you know very well that I'm speaking for your good," she went on, raising her voice a little. "But I tell you that all this is going to end badly. To be a thief gives you no position in the world—no position at all—and when I think of what you made me do the night before last, I'm just horrified at myself."

      "We'd better not talk about that—the mess you made of it! It was positively excruciating!" said Lupin.

      "And what did you expect? I'm an honest woman, I am!" said Victoire sharply. "I wasn't brought up to do things like that, thank goodness! And to begin at my time of life!"

      "It's true, and I often ask myself how you bring yourself to stick to me," said Lupin, in a reflective, quite impersonal tone. "Please pour me out another cup of coffee."

      "That's what I'm always asking myself," said Victoire, pouring out the coffee. "I don't know—I give it up. I suppose it is because I'm fond of you."

      "Yes, and I'm very fond of you, my dear Victoire," said Lupin, in a coaxing tone.

      "And then, look you, there are things that there's no understanding. I often talked to your poor mother about them. Oh, your poor mother! Whatever would she have said to these goings-on?"

      Lupin helped himself to another cutlet; his eyes twinkled and he said, "I'm not sure that she would have been very much surprised. I always told her that I was going to punish society for the way it had treated her. Do you think she would have been surprised?"

      "Oh, nothing you did would have surprised her," said Victoire. "When you were quite a little boy you were always making us wonder. You gave yourself such airs, and you had such nice manners of your own—altogether different from the other boys. And you were already a bad boy, when you were only seven years old, full of all kinds of tricks; and already you had begun to steal."

      "Oh, only sugar," protested Lupin.

      "Yes, you began by stealing sugar," said Victoire, in the severe tones of a moralist. "And then it was jam, and then it was pennies. Oh, it was all very well at that age—a little thief is pretty enough. But now—when you're twenty-eight years old."

      "Really, Victoire, you're absolutely depressing," said Lupin, yawning; and he helped himself to jam.

      "I know very well that you're all right at heart," said Victoire. "Of course you only rob the rich, and you've always been kind to the poor.... Yes; there's no doubt about it: you have a good heart."

      "I can't help it—what about it?" said Lupin, smiling.

      "Well, you ought to have different ideas in your head. Why are you a burglar?"

      "You ought to try it yourself, my dear Victoire," said Lupin gently; and he watched her with a humorous eye.

      "Goodness, what a thing to say!" cried Victoire.

      "I assure you, you ought," said Lupin, in a tone of thoughtful conviction. "I've tried everything. I've taken my degree in medicine and in law. I have been an actor, and a professor of Jiu-jitsu. I have even been a member of the detective force, like that wretched Guerchard. Oh, what a dirty world that is! Then I launched out into society. I have been a duke. Well, I give you my word that not one of these professions equals that of burglar—not even the profession of Duke. There is so much of the unexpected in it, Victoire—the splendid unexpected.... And then, it's full of variety, so terrible, so fascinating." His voice sank a little, and he added, "And what fun it is!"

      "Fun!" cried Victoire.

      "Yes ... these rich men, these swells in their luxury—when one relieves them of a bank-note, how they do howl! ... You should have seen that fat old Gournay-Martin when I relieved him of his treasures—what an agony! You almost heard the death-rattle in his throat. And then the coronet! In the derangement of their minds—and it was sheer derangement, mind you—already prepared at Charmerace, in the derangement of Guerchard, I had only to put out my hand and pluck the coronet. And the joy, the ineffable joy of enraging the police! To see Guerchard's furious eyes when I downed him.... And look round you!" He waved his hand round the luxurious room. "Duke of Charmerace! This trade leads to everything ... to everything on condition that one sticks to it ....I tell you, Victoire, that when one cannot be a great artist or a great soldier, the only thing to be is a great thief!"

      "Oh, be quiet!" cried Victoire. "Don't talk like that. You're working yourself up; you're intoxicating yourself! And all that, it is not Catholic. Come, at your age, you ought to have one idea in your head which should drive out all these others, which should make you forget all these thefts.... Love ... that would change you, I'm sure of it. That would make another man of you. You ought to marry."

      "Yes ... perhaps ... that would make another man of me. That's what I've been thinking. I believe you're right," said Lupin thoughtfully.

      "Is that true? Have you really been thinking of it?" cried Victoire joyfully.

      "Yes," said Lupin, smiling at her eagerness. "I have been thinking about it—seriously."

      "No more messing about—no more intrigues. But a real woman ... a woman for life?" cried Victoire.

      "Yes," said Lupin softly; and his eyes were shining in a very grave face.

      "Is it serious—is it real love, dearie?" said Victoire. "What's she like?"

      "She's beautiful," said Lupin.

      "Oh,

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