"You compelled me to do so," cried Eugène angrily.
"I?" ejaculated the Chevalier. "Did I compel you to come hither with your 'I will' and 'I will not'? Who are you, that you should give laws at Canaples? And he adds, sir," quoth the old knight excitedly, "that sooner than allow this marriage to take place he will kill M. de Mancini."
"I shall be happy to afford him the opportunity!" shouted Andrea, bounding forward.
Eugène looked up quickly and gave a short laugh. Thereupon followed a wild hubbub; everyone rushed forward and everyone talked; even little Geneviève--louder than all the rest.
"You shall not fight! You shall not fight!" she cried, and her voice was so laden with command that all others grew silent and all eyes were turned upon her.
"What affair is this of yours, little one?" quoth Eugène.
"'T is this," she answered, panting, "that you need fear no marriage 'twixt my sister and Andrea."
In her eagerness she had cast caution to the winds of heaven. Her father and brother stared askance at her; I gave an inward groan.
"Andrea!" echoed Eugène at last. "What is this man to you that you speak thus of him?"
The girl flung herself upon her father's breast.
"Father," she sobbed, "dear father, forgive!"
The Chevalier's brow grew dark; roughly he seized her by the arms and, holding her at arm's length, scanned her face.
"What must I forgive?" he inquired in a thick voice. "What is M. de Mancini to you?"
Some sinister note in her father's voice caused the girl to grow of a sudden calm and to assume a rigidity that reminded me of her sister.
"He is my husband!" she answered. And there was a note of pride--almost of triumph--in her voice.
An awful silence followed the launching of that thunderbolt. Eugène stood with open mouth, staring now at Geneviève, now at his father. Andrea set his arm about his bride's waist, and her fair head was laid trustingly upon his shoulder. The Chevalier's eyes rolled ominously. At length he spoke in a dangerously calm voice.
"How long is it--how long have you been wed?"
"We were wed in Blois an hour ago," answered Geneviève.
Something that was like a grunt escaped the Chevalier, then his eye fastened upon me, and his anger boiled up.
"You knew of this?" he asked, coming towards me.
"I knew of it."
"Then you lied to me yesterday."
I drew myself up, stiff as a broomstick.
"I do not understand," I answered coldly.
"Did you not give me your assurance that M. de Mancini would marry Yvonne?"