"Apologies, Monsieur! Can one offer an apology for what you have done?
Besides, it is said that my son is magnificent with the rapier and
would accept the apology of no man."
"Bah! That is a roundabout way of calling me a coward."
"I was presently coming to the phrase bluntly. If I were not seventy;
if I were young," as if musing.
"Well," truculently, "if you were young?"
The marquis's bold and fearless eyes sparkled with fire. "I am an old
man; vain wishes are useless. You are a coward, Monsieur; one of the
coarser breed; and I say to you if my son had not challenged you or had
accepted an apology, I would disown him indeed. As you will not fight
him, and as apologies are out of the question . . . Here, Monsieur;
there is equal light, and we are alone."
"I do not kill old men."
"Then listen: I apply to you the term De Leviston applied to my son."
"Monsieur, retract that!"
Their shoulders brushed and glowing eyes looked into glowing eyes.
"Bah! In my fifties I killed more men of your kidney than I am proud
of. Retract? I never retract;" and the marquis snapped his fingers
under D'Hérouville's nose.
D'Hérouville slapped the marquis in the face. "Your age, Monsieur,
will not save you. No man shall address me in this fashion!"
"Not even my son, eh, Monsieur? There is still blood in your muddy
veins, then? Come to my room, Monsieur; no one will see us there. And
you will not be subjected to the evils of the night air and the dew;"
and the calm old man waved a hand toward the lights which shone from
the windows of his room above.
"You have brought this upon yourself," said D'Hérouville, cold with
fury, forgetting his newly healed wound.
"What worried me most was the fear that you might not understand me.
Permit me to show you the way, Monsieur."
The marquis was the calmer of the two. A strange and springing new
life seemed to have entered his watery veins. A flare of the old-time
fire rose up within him: he was again the prince of a hundred duels.
On reaching the room, he lit all the candles and arranged them so as to
leave no shadows. Next he poured out a glass of wine and drank it,
drew his rapier, and bared his arm.
At the sight of that arm, thin and white, D'Hérouville felt all his ire
ooze from his pores. He could not measure swords with this old man,
who stood near enough to his grave without being sent into it offhand.
"Monsieur, forgive me for striking an old man, who is visibly my
inferior in strength and youth. My anger got the better of me. Your
courage compels my admiration. I can not fight you."