"Yet," went on the voice of his bête noire, "in spite of the fact that he has not, as La Boëssière said, a shred of real evidence to bring forward, I am afraid that he will never get what he deserves now."
"No," responded the other. "It is curious, the impression he seems to have made on some of the Court."
"Cannot you see that it is this pose of complete honesty and telling the whole truth that is doing it! It was an idea little short of genius. Of course one must be a good actor to carry it out . . . but that is just what the man is!"
"—Whatever is the matter, my dear boy?" exclaimed M. Perrelet. The dear boy did move sometimes with such disconcerting suddenness.
As for the individual who had so appraised L'Oiseleur's histrionic abilities, he had now in front of him to his exceeding surprise, a fair young man in the Vendean uniform, who was saying, with a very deadly intensity, "You will kindly take back every word of what you have just said, Monsieur, and apologize for having said it!"
"What! I'll be damned if I will!" cried the critic, jumping to his feet. So Laurent, exclaiming, "Espèce de Guitton!" knocked him down.
"Aha, la boxe Anglaise!" said M. Perrelet, craning forward, like everyone else. But the combat was not destined to proceed on pugilistic lines. Amid terrific clamour the victim rose to his feet, tugging at his sword, while some threw themselves on him, and Laurent's two friends tried to drag him away. M. de Courtomer himself appeared quite calm, though he was really tingling with the liveliest wrath.
"Satisfaction? Certainly!" M. Perrelet heard him say, amid the babel. "Also, instantly. Montbrillais, you'll see fair play for me, won't you?"
"But you can't fight here!" several voices assured him, and his friends, too, spoke of next morning.
"I regret that I am engaged to-morrow morning," quoth Laurent, and proceeded to remove his sword-belt. "Lucky I had my sword on this time!" he told himself.