A spasm passed over Louis’ face. “I can’t tell you that,” he answered hoarsely.
“My son,” said the priest impressively, “it will really be best for all of us if you tell me the exact truth. Most of it I know already. Since the beginning of last November I have known that you loved Lucienne; for the last week I have known that Lucienne loves you. I know of your fatal acknowledgment of your passion; I know, too, thank God, how you have tried to undo the wrong you have done. I want to know now how far Gilbert is cognisant of all this.”
Louis got up from his chair. “Ask him then,” he said, with dilated nostrils. Then he laughed, not pleasantly. “And better, ask him how he knows it. He is able to inform you more graphically than I. Shall I tell him to come up?”
“No,” replied the priest, without moving—unmoved, too, by his most unwonted rudeness. “No, I am asking you. My son, you must know that I am aware you have quarrelled.”
“Quarrelled!” exclaimed the Vicomte with another little laugh. “Oh no, Father—Gilbert is too magnanimous to quarrel! He has not quarrelled with me. He has merely said things to me . . . intolerable, not to be borne from any man alive . . . and refused to answer for them. That is not quarrelling, is it?”
And M. des Graves saw that Louis, that hater of emotion and of scenes, was quivering with passion. He began to have a pretty clear impression of what had taken place at the river. He got up and approached him. “Louis, this situation cannot go on.”
The Vicomte looked him full in the face. “Gilbert could end it—if he would.”
“How?”
“By a very simple means, involving nothing more than a couple of swords. But he refuses to fight me.”
“Ah!” said the older man quietly. And, despite his sympathy, he let the gleam of steel be seen in his own hand. “And so you think, Louis, that you are the aggrieved party?”