For a second his emotion had been out of hand, and he revealed to Leandre in the mordant tone of those last words something of the fires that burned under his icy exterior.  The young man caught him by the hand.

“I knew you were acting,” said he.  “You feel — you feel as I do.”

“Behold us, fellows in viciousness.  I have betrayed myself, it seems.  Well, and what now?  Do you want to see this pretty Marquis torn limb from limb?  I might afford you the spectacle.”

“What?” Leandre stared, wondering was this another of Scaramouche’s cynicisms.

“It isn’t really difficult provided I have aid.  I require only a little.  Will you lend it me?”

“Anything you ask,” Leandre exploded.  “My life if you require it.”

Andre-Louis took his arm again.  “Let us walk,” he said.  “I will instruct you.”

When they came back the company was already at dinner.  Mademoiselle had not yet returned.  Sullenness presided at the table.  Columbine and Madame wore anxious expressions.  The fact was that relations between Binet and his troupe were daily growing more strained.

Andre-Louis and Leandre went each to his accustomed place.  Binet’s little eyes followed them with a malicious gleam, his thick lips pouted into a crooked smile.

“You two are grown very friendly of a sudden,” he mocked.

“You are a man of discernment, Binet,” said Scaramouche, the cold loathing of his voice itself an insult.  “Perhaps you discern the reason?”

“It is readily discerned.”

“Regale the company with it!” he begged; and waited.  “What?  You hesitate?  Is it possible that there are limits to your shamelessness?”

Binet reared his great head.  “Do you want to quarrel with me, Scaramouche?” Thunder was rumbling in his deep, voice.

“Quarrel?  You want to laugh.  A man doesn’t quarrel with creatures like you.  We all know the place held in the public esteem by complacent husbands.  But, in God’s name, what place is there at all for complacent fathers?”

Binet heaved himself up, a great towering mass of manhood.  Violently he shook off the restraining hand of Pierrot who sat on his left.

“A thousand devils!” he roared; “if you take that tone with me, I’ll break every bone in your filthy body.”

“If you were to lay a finger on me, Binet, you would give me the only provocation I still need to kill you.”  Andre-Louis was as calm as ever, and therefore the more menacing.  Alarm stirred the company.  He protruded from his pocket the butt of a pistol — newly purchased.  “I go armed, Binet.  It is only fair to give you warning.  Provoke me as you have suggested, and I’ll kill you with no more compunction than I should kill a slug, which after all is the thing you most resemble — a slug, Binet; a fat, slimy body; foulness without soul and without intelligence.  When I come to think of it I can’t suffer to sit at table with you.  It turns my stomach.”