“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 right.  Let them laugh that win.  It was that old idiot of a Rousselet and that old simpleton of a coachman of Mademoiselle de Corandeuil’s who told tales about me.  I could tell tales also if I liked.”

“But what motive could they have to send you away?” continued Marillac, “you are a clever workman.  I have seen your work at the chateau; there are some rooms yet unfinished; there must have been some very grave reason for their not employing you just at the moment when they needed you most.”

“They said that I talked with Mademoiselle Justine, and Madame caused me to be discharged.  She is mistress there, is she not?  But I am the one to make her repent for it.”