But I warn you that I shall be very angry if you
fail to justify the impertinence of this insistence at so
inopportune a moment."
"You shall be the judge of that, monsieur," said Andre-Louis, and
he proceeded at once to state his case, beginning with the shooting
of Mabey, and passing thence to the killing of M. de Vilmorin. But
he withheld until the end the name of the great gentleman against
whom he demanded justice, persuaded that did he introduce it earlier
he would not be allowed to proceed.
He had a gift of oratory of whose full powers he was himself hardly
conscious yet, though destined very soon to become so.. He told
his story well, without exaggeration, yet with a force of simple
appeal that was irresistible. Gradually the great man's face relaxed
from its forbidding severity. Interest, warming almost to sympathy,
came to be reflected on it.
"And who, sir, is the man you charge with this?"
"The Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr."
The effect of that formidable name was immediate. Dismayed anger,
and an arrogance more utter than before, took the place of the
sympathy he had been betrayed into displaying.
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