“That’s the idea. Put yourself in King Victor’s place, Lemoine. Use your imagination. You’ve just come out of prison. You’re getting on in life. You’ve lost the first fine rapture of the adventurous life. Say, even, that you meet a beautiful girl. You think of marrying and settling down somewhere in the country where you can grow vegetable marrows. You decide from henceforth to lead a blameless life. Put yourself in King Victor’s place. Can’t you imagine feeling like that?”

“I do not think that I should feel like that,” said Lemoine with a sardonic smile.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t,” admitted Anthony. “But then you’re not King Victor, are you? You can’t possibly know what he feels like.”

“But it is nonsense, what you are saying there,” spluttered the Frenchman.