"It is about my sister," I said—"you—you go too far. I must ask you, as a gentleman, to cease persecuting her."
He answered "The devil!" and then: "If I do not?—"
It was evident in his voice, in his manner, that the man was a little—well, gris. "If you do not," I said, "I shall forbid her to see you and I shall . . ."
"Oh, oh!" he interjected with the intonation of a reveller at a farce. "We are at that—we are the excellent brother." He paused, and then added: "Well, go to the devil, you and your forbidding." He spoke with the greatest good humour.
"I am in earnest," I said; "very much in earnest. The thing has gone too far, and even for your own sake, you had better . . ."
He said "Ah, ah!" in the tone of his "Oh, oh!"
"She is no friend to you," I struggled on, "she is playing with you for her own purposes; you will . . ."
He swayed a little on his feet and said: "Bravo . . . bravissimo. If we can't for-
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