Her mind was thus involuntarily reproducing Ingolby's policy, as
he had declared it to Jowett and Rockwell. It was to find Felix
Marchand's price, and to buy off his enmity--not by money, for Marchand
did not need that, but by those other coins of value which are individual
to each man's desires, passions and needs.
"Once a Frenchman isn't always a Frenchman," she replied coolly,
disregarding the coarse insolence of his last utterance. "You yourself do
not now swear faith to the tricolour or the fleur-de-lis."
He flushed. She had touched a tender nerve.
"I am a Frenchman always," he rejoined angrily. "I hate the English. I
spit on the English flag."
"Yes, I've heard you are an anarchist," she rejoined. "A man with no
country and with a flag that belongs to no country--quelle affaire et
quelle drolerie!"
She laughed. Taken aback in spite of his anger, he stared at her. How
good her French accent was! If she would only speak altogether in that
beloved language, he could smother much malice. She was beautiful
and--well, who could tell? Ingolby was wounded and blind, maybe for ever,
and women are always with the top dog--that was his theory. Perhaps her
apparent dislike of him was only a mood. Many women that he had conquered
had been just like that.
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