All of which would have been very well from a man of forty, but was slightly ridiculous in this peach-faced youth of twenty.
A gleam of spirit—of Madame Riano’s spirit—flashed into Mademoiselle Capello’s face at this assumption on Gaston Cheverny’s part.
“Monsieur Cheverny,” she said, “I remember you perfectly well—also, your brother, Monsieur Regnard Cheverny. I am older than you think, perhaps. I even remember that I hated one of you—I can not now recall which one—except that he or you annoyed me, when I was a child in Brabant, at my château of Capello”—oh, the grand air with which she brought out “my château of Capello!”—“and—and—if I act—it is none of your business.”
“It will be Madame Riano’s business, though,” darkly hinted Gaston Cheverny.
At this veiled threat to tell her aunt, Mademoiselle Capello showed she was but a child after all, for she broke down, crying:
“I will promise, Monsieur.”
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There was but a single coach in sight, and while Gaston Cheverny was haranguing Mademoiselle Capello, I had engaged it to take her home. The coachman drove up, I opened the door and invited mademoiselle to enter. She recognized me at once, and curtsied deeply.
“Thank you, Monsieur,” she said with the greatest sweetness in the world. It was the first time she ever spoke to me—and can I ever forget it?
“Thank you, Monsieur; I do not know your name, but I know you followed me to this dreadful place to take care of me—and you have treated me with the utmost respect, Monsieur, and have not dared to reprove or threaten me, and I thank you for that, too!”
She gave a sidelong glance out of her eloquent eyes at Gaston Cheverny, that I would not have had her give me for the best horse in the king’s stables. The young man did not relish it, and straightway undertook to make me responsible for his chagrin. He scowled at me when I made my bow to Mademoiselle Capello, and attempted to divide the honor with me of putting her in the coach, which, after all, old Peter did. The door slammed, the coach rattled off, with Peter upon the box, and Mademoiselle Capello sitting in offended majesty within.
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CHAPTER IV
IN BEAUTY’S QUARREL
My young cock-a-hoop and I being left facing each other on the pavement of the court, he said to me, with a terrific scowl in his handsome bright young face:
“Who are you, sir?”
“Babache,” said I. “Captain of Uhlans in the body-guard of Count Saxe.”
“Well, Babache,” continues my young man, twirling his snuff-box as he had probably seen some older man do, “you were infernally in my way just now.”
“Was I?” answered I. “Why did you not tell me at the time? I would have gone and jumped into the Seine—” and as I spoke, I flipped the snuff-box out of his hand. I never saw a youngster in a greater rage. Like Mademoiselle Capello, a minute before, he hated to be treated like a child.
“Sir,” said he, “you shall eat your words.”
“Sir,” I replied, “I have supped already; and besides, I never had any appetite for that dish.”
With that he whipped out his sword, and I said, holding up my hand:
“My lad, I am willing to fight, if that is what you are after; but being much older and wiser than you, I will tell you that our quarrel must not in any way 41 relate to the young lady who has just been rescued from a very painful predicament. Suppose we quarrel about Count Saxe?”
“With all my heart,” responds Gaston Cheverny.
“He is, as you know, the greatest man that ever lived,” said I.
“Monsieur,” replied my young game chick, very politely, “I thought him a great man up to this very moment and felt honored by his notice—for I know him—but since I hear he is a friend and patron of yours, I swear I think he is the veriest poltroon, the ugliest man, the stupidest oaf I ever saw.”
“Thank you,” said I. “Kindly name the place and hour where a meeting between us may be arranged.”
“Why, here and now is the best time to arrange it. The garden of the Temple is retired enough. The moon is now rising—and with two good lanterns we can see to stick at each other—and we can each find an acquaintance within this very building.”
I was astonished at the youth’s temerity—but I saw it was not bloodthirstiness, but rather a youthful longing for a pickle-herring tragedy. It was my lady Francezka over again. Having scolded that young lady with the air of a patriarch, for her venturesomeness, Gaston Cheverny proceeded to hunt up adventures of his own. I saw that the notion of fighting by the light of flickering stable lanterns mightily tickled his fancy. So I said, looking at the great clock in the tower of the Temple:
“It is now ten o’clock. Shall we make it in an hour?”
“We can easily meet in half an hour.”
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“Certainly,” I answered. “We must each find a friend and a lantern.”
“Done,” he cried—and turned off.
I was much more puzzled to find a friend and a lantern than I was at the prospect of crossing swords with young Cheverny. The only human being I could think of at hand was Jacques Haret—and I loathed the thought of having him in that capacity. Just then, Jacques Haret came out of the door and passed through the courtyard. The time was short, so I stopped him, briefly stated the matter, and he accepted my cause, laughing uproariously the meanwhile. I had told him, of course, that Gaston Cheverny and I had quarreled about the greatness of Count Saxe.
“I know Cheverny well,” he cried. “When I was a gentleman, I, too, had a place in Brabant. Old Peter, you must know, was a retainer of my family, and served with my father under Marshal Villars, and that is how, my estate being gone—bought by Regnard Cheverny, brother of Gaston—and Peter coming to Paris, he took service with Peggy Kirkpatrick. He had known the Capello family in Brabant.”
Jacques Haret commonly told the truth about these things—and so I knew it to be true. He told me he had finally disposed of the children for the night, and proposed to get out of the way as quickly as possible. There was but little money in the theater, he said—the cobbler’s boy, his best actor, was so frightened at the adventures of the evening that he would never be worth anything as an actor again. Francezka would play no more; so he thought, on the whole, he had better cut the entire business, especially as it was possible the 43 matter might come to Peggy Kirkpatrick’s ears. Like myself, he regarded the meeting with Gaston Cheverny very lightly. I had my sword with me, and did not need to hire one as my adversary did, for he had on merely a dress sword, unfit for work. We could not lay hands on a surgeon, and I told Jacques Haret it mattered not—I would only be amusing myself with my young man, and he was only for saying that he crossed swords at a moment’s warning, about a young lady—and no one was likely to be hurt. We required a lantern, however, and Jacques Haret proposing a wine shop as a place likely to have a lantern for hire, we went in search of one—and speedily found it. And we were also able to secure what I knew would please my young cock mightily—one of those pieces of black cloth which old custom decrees shall be carried to throw over the corpse if either one of the combatants fall. It was no more likely to be used than a babe’s