"Therefore, milor," he continued with some acerbity as Lord Eglinton had vouchsafed no reply to his tirade, "we pray you to name your seconds to us, without delay, so that we may no longer intrude upon your privacy."
"I need not do that, M. le Marquis," said milor quietly. "I require no seconds."
"No seconds?" gasped the two gentlemen with one breath.
"I am not going to fight M. de Stainville."
If Lord Eglinton had suddenly declared his intention of dethroning King Louis and placing the crown of France on his own head, he could not more have astonished his two interlocutors. Both M. de Belle-Isle and M. de Lugeac were in fact absolutely speechless: in all their vast experience of Court life such a situation had never occurred before, and literally neither of them knew exactly how to deal with it. M. de Lugeac, young and arrogant, was the first to recover his presence of mind. Like his successful relative Jeanne Poisson de Pompadour he had been born in the slums of Paris, his exalted fortune, following so quickly in the wake of the ex-victualler's wife, had given him an assurance and an amount of impudence which the older de Belle-Isle lacked, and which stood him in good stead in the present crisis.
"Are we to look on this as a formal refusal, milor?" he now asked boldly.
"As you please."
"You will not give M. le Comte de Stainville the satisfaction usually agreed upon between men of honour?"
"I will not fight M. de Stainville," repeated milor quietly. "I am busy with other things."
"But milor," here interposed M. de Belle-Isle testily: "you cannot have reflected on the consequences of such an act, which I myself at this moment would hardly dare to characterize."