"Namely, your want of respect to our mother," concluded Laurent wrathfully.
"Nay!" retorted de Maurel curtly. "Methought that we were chiefly engaged in discussing my clothes."
"Until you chose to cast aspersions on Mme. la Marquise de Mortain, which I for one will not tolerate."
"If I have said aught to offend Mme. la Marquise," said Ronnay curtly, "I'll crave her pardon.... I had no intention to offend."
"Yet you do, man, you do," riposted Laurent hotly; "not only with your words, not only with your clothes, but by flaunting before her eyes that badge of infamy which you wear upon your breast."
"Laurent!" interposed M. de Courson quickly, for unobservant and obtuse though he was, he had not failed to note that de Maurel's face had suddenly become extraordinarily livid in hue, and that the breath came and went through his tightly clenched teeth with a curious, hissing sound.
"Nay, M. le Comte," he broke in slowly after a while, "I pray you do not try and stem the flow of my brother's eloquence. Meseems that the next few moments will clear the somewhat close atmosphere of Courson from a veritable fog of misunderstandings. I was under the impression that my linen blouse and muddy boots had alone offended Mme. la Marquise's aristocratic glance; it seems that there's something more about my person which hath not found favour in her sight."
Laurent, at these words, uttered in a husky voice as if the man were choking, broke into a strident laugh, and with uplifted hand he pointed to the crimson ribbon on Ronnay's blouse.
"Eminently suitable in colour," he said with a sneer, which suddenly sent the hot blood rushing back to the other's pale cheeks, "and well chosen by a baseborn adventurer to commemorate all the innocent blood which his treachery and vanity have helped to shed."
There came a quick flash in de Maurel's eyes, which the younger man would have been wise to heed. "Hold on, man! hold on!" he said, still speaking slowly and with seeming calm, "ere your profane mouth utter a sacrilege! This ribbon was pinned upon my breast on the glorious field of Austerlitz by the man whose valour and glory have won undying laurels for France—by the patriot who swept the soil of our beautiful country clean from foreign foes ... and whom an adoring nation hath proclaimed its Lord and Emperor."