There was nothing to be said in reply to this. M. de Clameran sought a means of escape.
“I am a friend of M. Fauvel,” he said, “and this title gives me the right to be as jealous of his reputation as if it were my own. If this is not a sufficient reason for my interference, I must inform you that his family will shortly be mine: I regard myself as his nephew.”
“Ah!”
“Next week, monsieur, my marriage with Madeleine will be publicly announced.”
This news was so unexpected, so startling that for a moment the clown was dumb; and now his surprise was genuine.
But he soon recovered himself, and, bowing with deference, said, with covert irony:
“Permit me to offer my congratulations, monsieur. Besides being the belle to-night, Mlle. Madeleine is worth, I hear, half a million.”
Raoul de Lagors had anxiously been watching the people near them, to see if they overheard this conversation.
“We have had enough of this gossip,” he said, in a disdainful tone; “I will only say one thing more, master clown, and that is, that your tongue is too long.”
“Perhaps it is, my pretty youth, perhaps it is; but my arm is still longer.”