Come, here is my hand."
"But you said that I"--
"And what if I did?" I interrupted. I had fallen into step, and was
pacing by his side. "What is there in the term that we should hold it
in slight esteem? I swagger. What does that mean, after all, but my
acknowledgment of the presence of Dame Opportunity, and my admission
that I would like to impress her; to draw her eye in my direction.
Surely that is laudable, monsieur."
Cadillac laughed. His tempers were the ruffle of a passing breeze upon
deep water. "So you think that I swagger to meet opportunity? Well,
if I do, I get but little out of it. Sometimes I push myself near
enough to pluck at the sleeve of the dame; oftener she passes me by."
"Yet she gave you this key to an empire," I suggested. I had been
rude, and I repented it, and more than that, there was something in the
man that tempted me to offer him flattery even as I desire to give
sweets to an engaging child.
But this cajolery he swept away with a fling of his heavy arm. "The
key to an empire!" he echoed contemptuously. "They are fine words, and
the mischief is that they are true. Yet food in my stomach, and money
in my pocket, would mean more to me just now.
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