"Citizen Bellecour," he said, and his voice, like his face, seemed to have changed since last the Marquis had heard it, and to have grown more deep and metallic, "you may marvel, now that you behold the Commissioner who sent a company of soldiers to rescue you and your Chateau from the hands of the mob last night, what purpose I sought to serve by extending to you a protection which none of your order merits, and you least of any, in my eyes."
"The times may have wrought sad and overwhelming changes," answered the Marquis, with cold contempt, "but it has not yet so utterly abased us that we bring ourselves to speculate upon the purposes of the rabble."
A faint crimson flush crept into Caron's sallow cheeks.
"Indeed, I see how little you have changed!" he answered bitterly. "You are of those that will not learn, Citizen. The fault lies here," he added, tapping his head, "and it will remain until we remove the ones with the other. But now for the business that brings me," he proceeded, more briskly. "Four years ago, Citizen Bellecour, you laid your whip across my face in the woods out yonder, and when I spoke of seeking satisfaction action you threatened me with your grooms. I will not speak of your other brutalities on that same day. I will confine myself to that first affront."
"Be brief, sir," cried the Marquis offensively. "Since you have the force to compel us to listen to you, let me beg that you will at least display the generosity of detaining us no longer than you need."
"I will be as brief as it lies within the possibility of words," answered Caron coldly. "I am come, Citizen Bellecour, to demand of you to-day the satisfaction which four years ago you refused me."
"Of me?" cried the Marquis.
"Through the person of your son, the Vicomte, as I asked for it four years ago," said Caron. "You are am old man, Citizen, and I do not fight old men."
"I am yet young enough to cut you into ribbons, you dog, if I were minded to dishonour myself by meeting you." And turning to Ombreval for sympathy, he vented a low laugh of contemptuous wonder.
"Insolence!" sneered Ombreval sympathetically, whilst Mademoiselle stood looking on with cheeks that were growing paler, for that this event would end badly for either her father or her brother she never doubted.
"Citizen Bellecour," said Caron, still very coldly, "you have heard what I propose, as have you also, Citizen-vicomte."
"For myself," began the youth "I am—"
"Silence, Armand!" his father commanded, laying a hand upon his sleeve. "Understand me, citizen-deputy, or citizen-commissioner, or citizen-blackguard or whatever you call your vile self, you are come on a fruitless journey to Bellecour. Neither I nor my son is so lost to the duty which we owe our rank as to so much as dream of acceding to your preposterous request. I think, sir, that you had been better advised to have left the mob to its work last night, if you but restrained it for this purpose."
"Is that your last word?" asked La Boulaye, still calmly weathering that storm of insults.
"My very last, sir."
"There are more ways than one of taking satisfaction for that affront, Citizen Bellecour," rejoined La Boulaye, "and if the course which I now pursue should prove more distasteful to you than that which I last suggested, the blame of it must rest with you." He turned to the bluecoat at the door. "Citizen-soldier, my whip."
There was a sudden movement among the aristocrats—a horrified recoiling—and even Bellecour was shaken out of his splendid arrogance.
"Insolent cur!" exclaimed Ombreval with withering scorn; "to what lengths is presumption driving you?"
"To the length of a horsewhip," answered La Boulaye pleasantly.
He received the whip from the hands of the soldier and he now advanced towards Bellecour, unwinding the lash as he came. Ombreval barred his way with an oath.
"By Heaven: you shall not!" he cried.
"Shall not?" echoed La Boulaye, his lips curling. "You had best stand aside—you that are steeped in musk and fierceness." And before the stern and threatening contempt of La Boulaye's glance the young nobleman fell back. But his place was taken by the Vicomte de Bellecour, who advanced to confront Caron.
"Monsieur la Boulaye," he announced, "I am ready and willing to meet you." And considering the grim alternative with which the Republicans had threatened him, the old Marquis had not the courage to interfere again.
"Ah!" It was an exclamation of satisfaction from the Commissioner. "I imagined that you would change your minds. I shall await you, Citizen, in the garden in five minutes' time."
"I shall not keep you waiting, Monsieur," was the Vicomte's answer.
Very formally La Boulaye bowed and left the room accompanied by the officer and followed by the soldier.
"Mon Dieu!" gasped the Marquise, fanning herself as the door closed after the Republicans. "Open me a window or I shall stifle! How the place reeks with them. I am a calm woman, Messieurs, but, on my honour, had he addressed any of you by his odious title of 'citizen' again, I swear that I had struck him with my own hands."
There were some that laughed. But Mademoiselle was not of those.
Her eyes travelled to her brother's pale face and weakly frame, and her glance was such a glance as we bend upon the beloved dead, for in him she saw one who was going inevitably to his death.
CHAPTER VII. LA BOULAYE DISCHARGES A DEBT
Along the northern side of the Chateau ran a terrace bordered by a red sandstone balustrade, and below this the Italian garden, so called perhaps in consequence of the oddly clipped box-trees, its only feature that suggested Italy. At the far end of this garden there was a strip of even turf that might have been designed for a fencing ground, and which Caron knew of old. Thither he led Captain Juste, and there in the pale sunshine of that February morning they awaited the arrival of the Vicomte and his sponsor.
But the minutes went by and still they waited-five, ten, fifteen minutes elapsed, yet no one came. Juste was on the point of returning within to seek the reason of this delay when steps sounded on the terrace above. But they were accompanied by the rustle of a gown, and presently it was Mademoiselle who appeared before them. The two men eyed her with astonishment, which in the case of La Boulaye, was tempered by another feeling.
"Monsieur la Boulaye," said she, her glance wandering towards the Captain, "may I speak with you alone?"
Outwardly impassive the Commissioner bowed.
"Your servant, Citoyenne," said he, removing his cocked hat. "Juste, will you give us leave?"
"You will find me on the terrace when you want me, Citizen-deputy," answered the officer, and saluting, he departed.
For a moment or two after he was gone Suzanne and Caron stood confronting each other in silence. She seemed smitten with a sudden awkwardness, and she looked away from him what time he waited, hat in hand, the chill morning breeze faintly stirring a loose strand of his black hair.
"Monsieur," she faltered at last, "I am come to intercede."
At that a faint smile hovered a second on the Republican's thin lips.
"And is the noblesse of France fallen so low that it sends its women to intercede for the lives of its men? But, perhaps," he added cynically, "it had not far to fall."
Her cheeks reddened. His insult to her class acted upon her as a spur and overcame the irresoluteness that seemed to have beset her.
"To insult the fallen, sir, is worthy of the new regime, whose representative you are, Enfine! We must take it, I suppose, as we take everything else in these disordered times—with a bent head and a meek submission."