第26章

"He has brutally assaulted the Chevalier," cried Madame shrilly, her eyes malevolently set upon me. "He is only a child, this poor Saint-Eustache," she reproached me. "I saw it all from my window, Monsieur de Lesperon. It was brutal; it was cowardly. So to beat a boy! Shame! If you had a quarrel with him, are there not prescribed methods for their adjustment between gentlemen? Pardieu, could you not have given him proper satisfaction?""If madame will give herself the trouble of attentively examining this poor Saint-Eustache," said I, with a sarcasm which her virulence prompted, "you will agree, I think, that I have given him very proper and very thorough satisfaction. I would have met him sword in hand, but the Chevalier has the fault of the very young - he is precipitate; he was in too great a haste, and he could not wait until I got a sword. So I was forced to do what I could with a cane.""But you provoked him," she flashed back.

"Whoever told you so has misinformed you; madame. On the contrary, he provoked me. He gave me the lie. I struck him - could I do less? - and he drew. I defended myself, and I supplemented my defence by a caning, so that this poor Saint-Eustache might realize the unworthiness of what he had done. That is all, madame."But she was not so easily to be appeased, not even when Mademoiselle and the Vicomte joined their voices to mine in extenuation of my conduct. It was like Lavedan. For all that he was full of dread of the result and of the vengeance Saint-Eustache might wreak - boy though he was - he expressed himself freely touching the Chevalier's behaviour and the fittingness of the punishment that had overtaken him.

The Vicomtesse stood in small awe of her husband, but his judgment upon a point of honour was a matter that she would not dare contest.

She was ministering to the still prostrate Chevalier who, I think, remained prostrate now that he might continue to make appeal to her sympathy - when suddenly she cut in upon Roxalanne's defence of me.

"Where have you been?" she demanded suddenly.

"When, my mother?"

"This afternoon," answered the Vicomtesse impatiently. "The Chevalier was waiting two hours for you."Roxalanne coloured to the roots of her hair. The Vicomte frowned.

"Waiting for me, my mother? But why for me?""Answer my question -where have you been?""I was with Monsieur de Lesperon," she answered simply.

"Alone?" the Vicomtesse almost shrieked.

"But yes." The poor child's tones were laden with wonder at this catechism.

"God's death!" she snapped. "It seems that my daughter is no better than - "Heaven knows what may have been coming, for she had the most virulent, scandalous tongue that I have ever known in a woman's head - which is much for one who has lived at Court to say. But the Vicomte, sharing my fears, perhaps, and wishing to spare the child's ears, interposed quickly "Come, madame, what airs are these?

What sudden assumption of graces that we do not affect? We are not in Paris. This is not the Luxembourg. En province comme en province, and here we are simple folk - ""Simple folk?" she interrupted, gasping. "By God, am I married to a ploughman? Am I Vicomtesse of Lavedan, or the wife of a boor of the countryside? And is the honour of your daughter a matter - ""The honour of my daughter is not in question, madame," he interrupted in his turn, and with a sudden sternness that spent the fire of her indignation as a spark that is trampled underfoot.

Then, in a calm, level voice: "Ah, here are the servants," said he.

"Permit them, madame, to take charge of Monsieur de Saint-Eustache.

Anatole, you had better order the carriage for Monsieur le Chevalier.

I do not think that he will be able to ride home."Anatole peered at the pale young gentleman on the ground, then he turned his little wizened face upon me, and grinned in a singularly solemn fashion. Monsieur de Saint-Eustache was little loved, it seemed.

Leaning heavily upon the arm of one of the lacqueys, the Chevalier moved painfully towards the courtyard, where the carriage was being prepared for him. At the last moment he turned and beckoned the Vicomte to his side.

"As God lives, Monsieur de Lavedan," he swore, breathing heavily in the fury that beset him, "you shall bitterly regret having taken sides to-day with that Gascon bully. Remember me, both of you, when you are journeying to Toulouse."The Vicomte stood beside him, impassive and unmoved by that grim threat, for all that to him it must have sounded like a death-sentence.

"Adieu, monsieur - a speedy recovery," was all he answered.

But I stepped up to them. "Do you not think, Vicomte, that it were better to detain him?" I asked.

"Pshaw!" he ejaculated. "Let him go."