(7)
The scientific man in question becoming very high-handed after supper, and ordering his ex-patient to bed, Laurent went forth to hunt up a couple of acquaintances whom he had seen as they came back from the Hôtel de Ville. He found them, as he expected, at the Hôtel de l'Ecusson and, knowing Aymar to be in excellent hands, went in with them and called for wine.
In the room he entered, which was full of officers, the enquiry seemed to be the sole topic of conversation, and the only point on which there appeared to be general agreement was that those who had not attended it that afternoon would be there next morning. Some stared at Laurent, recognizing him, and he felt that it was not a bad move to have put in an appearance, just to show that one had a clear conscience. His own friends were fortunately bien pensants, one of them enthusiastically so, and the other said that he thought La Rocheterie must be innocent, or he would never have had the courage to bring all this upon himself. With them, too, surmises were not wanting as to the "cousin" and her relations with L'Oiseleur, but Laurent purposely avoided throwing any light upon the subject.
Presently, lo, through the clouds of tobacco-smoke a face appeared for a moment and vanished again. Laurent made one of his swift sallies.
"Monsieur Perrelet, come in, come in! Are you looking for me—how charming of you! Come and have a glass of wine with me! I have some friends here; you can tell us the latest news from Arbelles."
M. Perrelet, chuckling, protesting and pleased, suffered the young man to drag him in and make presentations.
"Well, yes, perhaps one glass of cognac," he said. "I left him in bed," he announced behind his hand to Laurent, "in fact, I gave him a sleeping-draught (though he was not aware of it). . . . There is something I want to ask you presently. . . . Oh, thank you, Monsieur, you are too kind!"
So there the good doctor sat, smoking a cheroot, and very happy in the consciousness that he was "seeing life"—in the Royalist camp this time; at least that was how Laurent read his amused and contented and observant expression, and he was probably not far wrong. But half of Laurent himself, though he continued to chat, was gauging with a rather too acute sensitiveness the current of feeling in the room about the one thing which mattered to him. After the tension of the afternoon the wine he had taken, though without affecting his head in the ordinary sense, made him conscious of a desire to get up and say something, publicly, on Aymar's behalf. But his better sense warned him against it. However, he ended by engaging in something a great deal more sensational than oratory.
For at a table close by had now been sitting for a little while, with a friend, the very officer whose behaviour had displeased him in the audience at the Hôtel de Ville. Laurent could not help hearing their conversation. The two amused themselves for some time by half-whispered witticisms about "la belle cousine," and though Laurent's brow grew darker and darker his good sense again warned him not to bring this topic into more prominence by taking notice of it.
But suddenly he heard, so clearly spoken that others must have heard it, too:
"Pretty brazen, to base your main defence on an invented conversation with two men of whom one is dead and the other cannot be found!"
The other man assented, and Laurent, angry as he was, realized what a specious appearance of truth there was in this criticism.
"Yet," went on the voice of his bête noire, "in spite of the fact that he has not, as La Boëssière said, a shred of real evidence to bring forward, I am afraid that he will never get what he deserves now."
"No," responded the other. "It is curious, the impression he seems to have made on some of the Court."
"Cannot you see that it is this pose of complete honesty and telling the whole truth that is doing it! It was an idea little short of genius. Of course one must be a good actor to carry it out . . . but that is just what the man is!"
"—Whatever is the matter, my dear boy?" exclaimed M. Perrelet. The dear boy did move sometimes with such disconcerting suddenness.
As for the individual who had so appraised L'Oiseleur's histrionic abilities, he had now in front of him to his exceeding surprise, a fair young man in the Vendean uniform, who was saying, with a very deadly intensity, "You will kindly take back every word of what you have just said, Monsieur, and apologize for having said it!"
"What! I'll be damned if I will!" cried the critic, jumping to his feet. So Laurent, exclaiming, "Espèce de Guitton!" knocked him down.
"Aha, la boxe Anglaise!" said M. Perrelet, craning forward, like everyone else. But the combat was not destined to proceed on pugilistic lines. Amid terrific clamour the victim rose to his feet, tugging at his sword, while some threw themselves on him, and Laurent's two friends tried to drag him away. M. de Courtomer himself appeared quite calm, though he was really tingling with the liveliest wrath.
"Satisfaction? Certainly!" M. Perrelet heard him say, amid the babel. "Also, instantly. Montbrillais, you'll see fair play for me, won't you?"
"But you can't fight here!" several voices assured him, and his friends, too, spoke of next morning.
"I regret that I am engaged to-morrow morning," quoth Laurent, and proceeded to remove his sword-belt. "Lucky I had my sword on this time!" he told himself.
"Engaged? Ah, yes, with the play-actor!" sneered his opponent, whose lip was already swelling.
"No," retorted Laurent, throwing back his head and speaking very clearly and deliberately, "with my friend, M. le Vicomte de la Rocheterie, Chevalier de St. Louis—he who held the Moulin Brûlé, L'Oiseleur!"
"Bravo!" cried several voices to this.
"And I will either give you satisfaction here and now or not at all," resumed Laurent. "You need have no fear on the score of the medical attendance; I have an excellent surgeon with me"—he slightly indicated M. Perrelet—"and though he, too, happens to be a friend of M. de la Rocheterie's, I am sure he will do his best for you."
There were not only cheers, but laughter now. The general opinion also was with Laurent on the desirability of settling the affair on the spot, and his foe was too angry to wish to postpone shedding his blood. So the company pushed back the tables with alacrity, and Laurent stripped off his coat and gave it to one of his friends. At that point M. Perrelet came and caught him by the arm.
"Laurent," he said in a low voice, agitated and yet pleasurably agitated, and unaware that he had used his Christian name, "Laurent, my dear boy, are you au fait at this sort of thing?"
"Do you mean," enquired Laurent coolly, as he rolled up his shirt sleeve, "have I ever fought before? No, I have not. But between foils and singlestick, I know quite enough to settle M. Guitton cadet."
M. Perrelet could not restrain a chuckle of appreciation. But he whispered, "Do, pray, be careful!"
"Of him? Oh, yes . . . up to a point."
How all too short are moments of ecstasy! This one only lasted, from the—"On guard!" and the loosing of the crossed blades, fifty-six seconds exactly—seconds in which the younger gentleman at the end of one of those blades was blissfully, unimaginably happy. He knew that he was no brilliant swordsman, but he knew, too, that he had a steady hand, a quick eye, and a very good balance . . . and he was fighting for Aymar. Yes, it was a pity that this man, ten years his senior and with more experience, no doubt, behind him, was so angry, because otherwise he might have prolonged the bout instead of exposing himself in that crazy fashion.
A queer sensation, that, of the point going in! Queer evidently for Guitton cadet also. There was surprise on his face as well as pain and fury as he recoiled, run very creditably through the top of the right shoulder.