The lion's smile was not, properly speaking, a smile at all, chevalier; it was the torture which came of snuff getting into its nostrils, and when the beast made that uncanny noise and snapped its jaws together, it was simply the outcome of a sneeze.

The thing would be farcical if it were not that tragedy hangs on the thread of it, and that a life, a useful human life, was destroyed by means of it.

Yes, it was clever, it was diabolically clever; but you know what Bobby Burns says about the best laid schemes of mice and men.

There's always a Power--higher up--that works the ruin of them." With that he walked by, and, going to young Scarmelli, put out his hand.
"You're a good chap and you've got a good girl, so I expect you will be happy," he said; and then lowered his voice so that the rest might not reach the chevalier's ears.

"You were wrong to suspect the little stepmother," he added.