He looked up and saw that Meschini had returned and was standing before him, as though waiting to be addressed.  The suddenness of the librarian’s appearance made the prince utter an exclamation of surprise.

“Yes, I have come back,” said Meschini.  “The matter we were discussing cannot be put off, and I have come back to ask you to be good enough to pay the money.”

Montevarchi was nervous and had lost the calm tone of superiority he had maintained before his interview with Faustina.  The idea of losing Frangipani, too, made his avarice assert itself very strongly.

“I told you,” he replied, “that I refused altogether to talk with you, so long as you addressed me in that tone.  I repeat it.  Leave me, and when you have recovered your manners I will give you something for yourself.  You will get nothing so long as you demand it as though it were a right.”

“I will not leave this room without the money,” answered Meschini, resolutely.  The bell was close to the door.  The librarian placed himself between the prince and both.

“Leave the room!” cried Montevarchi, trembling with anger.  He had so long despised Meschini, that the exhibition of obstinacy on the part of the latter did not frighten him.

The librarian stood before the bell and the latch of the door, his long arms hanging down by his sides, his face yellow, his eyes red.  Any one might have seen that he was growing dangerous.  Instead of repeating his refusal to go, he looked steadily at his employer and a disagreeable smile played upon his ugly features.  Montevarchi saw it and his fury boiled over.  He laid his hands on the arms of his chair as though he would rise, and in that moment he would have been capable of striking Meschini as he had struck Faustina.  Meschini shuffled forwards and held up his hand.

“Do not be violent,” he said, in a low voice.  “I am not your daughter, you know.”

Montevarchi’s jaw dropped, and he fell back into his chair again.

“You listened—­you saw—­” he gasped.

“Yes, of course.  Will you pay me?  I am desperate, and I will have it.  You and your miserable secrets are mine, and I will have my price.  I only want the sum you promised.  I shall be rich in a few days, for I have entered into an affair in which I shall get millions, as many as you have perhaps.  But the money must be paid to-morrow morning or I am ruined, and you must give it to me.  Do you hear?  Do you understand that I will have what is mine?”

At this incoherent speech, Montevarchi recovered something of his former nerve.  There was something in Meschini’s language that sounded like argument, and to argue was to temporise.  The prince changed his tone.

“But, my dear Meschini, how could you be so rash as to go into a speculation when you knew that the case might not be decided for another week?  You are really the most rash man I ever knew.  I cannot undertake to guarantee your speculations.  I will be just.  I have told you that I would give you two thousand—­”