"That is a farce!" I said unkindly. "It is folly to say that in your
Colonies you will have no caste. You cannot change nature. Can you
make a camel of a marmoset? I asked you what you were born?"
He smiled. "I was born an English subject. Monsieur, I have answered
three questions. You owe me three in turn. Did you ever know Robert
Cavelier?"
I stared. "The Seigneur de la Salle?"
"The same."
I stared again. "He has been dead for eight years. What do you, an
Englishman, know of him?"
He gave a wave of the hand. "It was my question," he reminded. "I
asked if you knew him."
I could not but be amused. How he liked to play at mystery! I would
copy his brevity. "Yes," I replied.
He looked up with much interest. "So you knew him. Tell me, monsieur,
was he mountebank and freebooter, or a gallant gentleman much maligned?"
I removed my hat. "He was neither. He was an ambition incarnate; an
ambition so vast there were few to understand it, for it had no
personal side. You said the other night that but few motives rule men.
La Salle has been misunderstood because the usual motives--greed, the
love of woman, and the desire for fame--did not touch him. He was the
slave of one great idea, and so he was lonely and men feared him.
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