"Surely it is M. le Contrôleur-Général," said the latter, jumping to his feet.
He had paid no heed to his guest's curious outburst of merriment, putting it down as another expression of his strange humour, else to the potency of Jean Marie's wine; but he had been deeply interested in the elegant figure of the stranger, that perfect type of a high-born gentleman which the young man was quick enough to recognise. The face, the quaintly awkward manner, brought back certain recollections of two days spent at the Court of Versailles.
Now when Eglinton turned toward him, he at once recognised the handsome face, and those kind eyes, which always looked grave and perfectly straight at an interlocutor.
"Milor Eglinton, a thousand pardons," he now said as he moved quickly across the room. "I had failed to recognise you at first, and had little thought of seeing so great a personage in this sleepy old town."
Eglinton too had risen at his first words and had stepped forward, with his habitual courtesy, to greet the young man. De Mortémar's hand was cordially stretched out toward him, the next moment he would have clasped that of the young Englishman, when with one bound and a rush across the room and with one wild shout of rage, Gaston de Stainville overtook his friend and, catching hold of his arm, he drew him roughly back.
"Nay! de Mortémar, my friend," he cried loudly, "be warned in time lest your honest hand come in contact with that of a coward."
His words echoed along the vast, empty room. Then there was dead silence. Instinctively Mortémar had stepped back as if he had been stung. He did not of course understand the meaning of it all, and was so taken aback that he could no nothing but stare amazed at the figure of the young man before him. Eglinton's placidity had in no sense given way before the deadly insult; only his face had become pale as death, but the eyes still looked grave, earnest and straight at his enemy.
"Aye! a coward," said Gaston, who during these few moments of silence had fought the trembling of his limbs, the quiver of his voice. He saw the calm of the other man and with a mighty effort smothered the cryings of his rage, leaving cool contempt free play. "Or will you deny here, before my friend le Comte de Mortémar, who was about to touch your hand, that last night having insulted me you refused to give me satisfaction? Coward! you have no right to touch another's hand . . . the hand of an honourable gentleman. . . . Coward! . . . Do you hear me? I'll say it again—coward—and coward again ere I shout it on the house-tops of Versailles—coward!—even now when my hand has struck your cheek—coward!"
How it all happened Mortémar himself could not afterward have said, the movement must have been extraordinarily quick, for even as the last word "Coward!" rose to Gaston's lips it was drowned in an involuntary cry of agony, whilst his hand, raised ready to strike, was held in a grip which indeed seemed like one of steel.
"'Tis done, man! 'tis done!" said the gentle, perfectly even voice, "but in the name of Heaven provoke me no further, or it will be murder instead of fight. There!" he added, releasing the other man's wrist, who staggered back faint and giddy with the pain, "'tis true that I refused to meet you in combat yester e'en; the life of my friend, lonely and betrayed, out there in far-off Scotland, had been the price of delay if I did not ride out of Versailles before cock-crow, but now 'tis another matter," he added lightly, "and I am at your service."