"Bah! these English!" said young de Lugeac, as he made the gesture of spitting on the ground. "I had not believed it, par tous les diables! had I not heard with mine own ears."
But de Belle-Isle gravely shook his head.
"I fear me the young man is only putting off the evil day. His skin will have to be tough indeed if he can put up with . . . well! with what he will get when this business becomes known."
"And it will become known," asserted de Lugeac spitefully. He had always hated what he called the English faction. Madame Lydie always snubbed him unmercifully, and milor had hitherto most conveniently ignored his very existence. "By G—d I hope that my glove will be the first to touch his cheek."
"Sh!—sh!—sh!" admonished de Belle-Isle, nodding toward Achille who was busy with the candelabrum.
"Nay! what do I care," retorted the other; "had you not restrained me I'd have called him a dirty coward then and there."
"That had been most incorrect, my good Lugeac," rejoined de Belle-Isle drily, and wilfully ignoring the language which, in moments of passion, so plainly betrayed the vulgar origin. "The right to insult Lord Eglinton belongs primarily to Gaston de Stainville, and afterward only to his friends."
And although M. le Marquis de Belle-Isle expressed himself in more elegant words than his plebeian friend, there was none the less spite and evil intent in the expression of his face as he spoke.
Then giving a sign to Achille to precede them with the light, the two representatives of M. le Comte de Stainville finally strode out of the apartments of the ex-Comptroller General of Finance.
M. Durand, with his bulky books and his papers under his arms, followed meekly, repeatedly shaking his head.