The Comte, darkly flushed, was gripping the hilt of his sword with his left hand. “I will give it you to-night—with all my heart!” he said between his teeth.
“Do not be absurd, Monsieur!” said his leader sharply. “You are beside yourself to suggest such a thing. How could we go out, you and I, the general and the second-in-command of the army of Finistère! The whole of the West would ring with the scandal. We must part, that is plain, but we cannot fight . . . unfortunately.”
The Comte saw the precipice receding. He gathered himself together for a final effort.
“Then, Monsieur le Duc de Trélan,” he said, “give me leave to tell you that, my opinion of your past behaviour being unchanged, I must now add to it what I think of your present. You have not redeemed yourself by these last years—by that business of Rivoli and the rest. You are, as you always were . . . un lâche!”
He had reached his goal. That intolerable word, delivered moreover like the sting of a whip, was too much for the determination of the proud nature at which it was flung.
“Will you fight me now?” asked de Brencourt, watching him.
“Yes!” said Gaston de Trélan with a gasp, and, as though to seal his reversed decision and make it impossible to withdraw from it, he struck the Comte with the back of his hand, but quite lightly, across the mouth.
“Thank you!” said the latter, apparently accepting the formal blow in the same spirit. “I thought you would see reason in the end.” He passed his handkerchief across his lips and became business-like. “We cannot fight here, that is plain. And we must dispense with seconds.”
“There is a full moon,” said the Duc de Trélan curtly. “We must go to the forest. By that dolmen they call the Moulin-aux-Fées would serve. There is a level clearing there.”
“Yes, that would serve admirably. We must provide some excuse—say we are anxious to make a reconnaissance or something of the kind—since I suppose it is impossible to get out without being seen. Nobody should suspect . . . unless one of us does not come back. Then it will be—the work of some lurking Republican.”