Scaramouche Rafael Sabatini (ebook pdf reader for pc TXT) đ
- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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âYou have been deceived in that, I fear.â
âDeceived?â
âYour sentiments betray the indiscretion of which madame your mother must have been guilty.â
The brutally affronting words were sped beyond recall, and the lips that had uttered them, coldly, as if they had been the merest commonplace, remained calm and faintly sneering.
A dead silence followed. AndrĂ©-Louisâ wits were numbed. He stood aghast, all thought suspended in him, what time M. de Vilmorinâs eyes continued fixed upon M. de La Tour dâAzyrâs, as if searching there for a meaning that eluded him. Quite suddenly he understood the vile affront. The blood leapt to his face, fire blazed in his gentle eyes. A convulsive quiver shook him. Then, with an inarticulate cry, he leaned forward, and with his open hand struck M. le Marquis full and hard upon his sneering face.
In a flash M. de Chabrillane was on his feet, between the two men.
Too late AndrĂ©-Louis had seen the trap. La Tour dâAzyrâs words were but as a move in a game of chess, calculated to exasperate his opponent into some such countermove as thisâ âa countermove that left him entirely at the otherâs mercy.
M. le Marquis looked on, very white save where M. de Vilmorinâs fingerprints began slowly to colour his face; but he said nothing more. Instead, it was M. de Chabrillane who now did the talking, taking up his preconcerted part in this vile game.
âYou realize, monsieur, what you have done,â said he, coldly, to Philippe. âAnd you realize, of course, what must inevitably follow.â
M. de Vilmorin had realized nothing. The poor young man had acted upon impulse, upon the instinct of decency and honour, never counting the consequences. But he realized them now at the sinister invitation of M. de Chabrillane, and if he desired to avoid these consequences, it was out of respect for his priestly vocation, which strictly forbade such adjustments of disputes as M. de Chabrillane was clearly thrusting upon him.
He drew back. âLet one affront wipe out the other,â said he, in a dull voice. âThe balance is still in M. le Marquisâs favour. Let that content him.â
âImpossible.â The Chevalierâs lips came together tightly. Thereafter he was suavity itself, but very firm. âA blow has been struck, monsieur. I think I am correct in saying that such a thing has never happened before to M. le Marquis in all his life. If you felt yourself affronted, you had but to ask the satisfaction due from one gentleman to another. Your action would seem to confirm the assumption that you found so offensive. But it does not on that account render you immune from the consequences.â
It was, you see, M. de Chabrillaneâs part to heap coals upon this fire, to make quite sure that their victim should not escape them.
âI desire no immunity,â flashed back the young seminarist, stung by this fresh goad. After all, he was nobly born, and the traditions of his class were strong upon himâ âstronger far than the seminarist schooling in humility. He owed it to himself, to his honour, to be killed rather than avoid the consequences of the thing he had done.
âBut he does not wear a sword, messieurs!â cried AndrĂ©-Louis, aghast.
âThat is easily amended. He may have the loan of mine.â
âI mean, messieurs,â AndrĂ©-Louis insisted, between fear for his friend and indignation, âthat it is not his habit to wear a sword, that he has never worn one, that he is untutored in its uses. He is a seminaristâ âa postulant for holy orders, already half a priest, and so forbidden from such an engagement as you propose.â
âAll that he should have remembered before he struck a blow,â said M. de Chabrillane, politely.
âThe blow was deliberately provoked,â raged AndrĂ©-Louis. Then he recovered himself, though the otherâs haughty stare had no part in that recovery. âO my God, I talk in vain! How is one to argue against a purpose formed! Come away, Philippe. Donât you see the trapâ ââ âŠâ
M. de Vilmorin cut him short, and flung him off. âBe quiet, AndrĂ©. M. le Marquis is entirely in the right.â
âM. le Marquis is in the right?â AndrĂ©-Louis let his arms fall helplessly. This man he loved above all other living men was caught in the snare of the worldâs insanity. He was baring his breast to the knife for the sake of a vague, distorted sense of the honour due to himself. It was not that he did not see the trap. It was that his honour compelled him to disdain consideration of it. To AndrĂ©-Louis in that moment he seemed a singularly tragic figure. Noble, perhaps, but very pitiful.
IV The HeritageIt was M. de Vilmorinâs desire that the matter should be settled out of hand. In this he was at once objective and subjective. A prey to emotions sadly at conflict with his priestly vocation, he was above all in haste to have done, so that he might resume a frame of mind more proper to it. Also he feared himself a little; by which I mean that his honour feared his nature. The circumstances of his education, and the goal that for some years now he had kept in view, had robbed him of much of that spirited brutality that is the birthright of the male. He had grown timid and gentle as a woman. Aware of it, he feared that once the heat of his passion was spent he might betray a dishonouring weakness in the ordeal.
M. le Marquis, on his side, was no less eager for an immediate settlement; and since they had M. de Chabrillane to act for his cousin, and André-Louis to serve as witness for M. de Vilmorin, there was nothing to delay them.
And so, within a few minutes, all arrangements were concluded, and you behold that sinisterly intentioned little group of four assembled in the afternoon sunshine on the bowling-green behind the inn. They were entirely private, screened more or less
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