(speaking to the Cadets).
I can afford to scorn your bluster. Everybody knows how I behave under fire. Even yesterday, there were enough witnesses to the spirit with which I routed Count de Bucquoi; leading my people against his men like an avalanche, I charged him three successive times!
CYRANO (without lifting his eyes from his book).
How about your white scarf?
GUICHE (surprised and satisfied).
You know of this trifle?.... True, it happened, while I was circling to gather my people for the third charge, that a party of runaways forced me too close to the enemy; I was in danger of being taken or shot, when, happily, I bethought me to untie and to drop the scarf that told my rank. In this way, and without attracting notice, I managed to get away from the Spaniards, and to turn back upon them with all my men, beating them terribly!—Now, what do you say to this?
(The Cadets affect not to listen, but they have stopped playing, and they hold back the smoke of their pipes. A wait.)
CYRANO.
I say that Henry IV, even surrounded by a host of foes, never would have consented to diminish himself by casting off his plume of snowy white.
(Silent joy. Playing and smoking are resumed.)