"Why should I sit down, and what are you doing here?--I want to know
that," Stolphe demanded. Jean Jacques' hands were opening and shutting.
"Because I want to talk to you. If you don't sit down, I'll give you no
chance at all. . . . Sit down!" Jean Jacques was smaller than
Stolphe, but he was all whipcord and leather; the other was sleek and
soft, but powerful too; and he had one of those savage natures which go
blind with hatred, and which fight like beasts. He glanced swiftly round
the room.

"There is no weapon here," said Jean Jacques, nodding. "I have put
everything away--so you could not hurt me if you wanted. . . . Sit
down!"

To gain time Stolphe sat down, for he had a fear that Jean Jacques was
armed, and might be a madman armed--there were his feet bare on the brown
painted boards. They looked so strange, so uncanny. He surely must be a
madman if he wanted to do harm to Hugo Stolphe; for Hugo Stolphe had only
"kept" the woman who had left her husband, not because of himself, but
because of another man altogether--one George Masson. Had not Carmen
herself told him that before she and he lived together? What grudge
could Carmen's husband have against Hugo Stolphe?

Jean Jacques sat down also, and, leaning on the table said: "Once I was a
fool and let the other man escape-George Masson it was. Because of what
he did, my wife left me."

His voice became husky, but he shook his throat, as it were, cleared it,
and went on. "I won't let you go. I was going to kill George Masson--I
had him like that!" He opened and shut his hand with a gesture of fierce