“I must implore your pardon, ladies, yours more especially, Mademoiselle Valerie, for enacting such a scene in your presence. Mais c’était plus fort que moi!” he added, laughing. “I could not contain myself at seeing a lady so infamously insulted.”
Caroline and the Misses Selwyn were so much frightened by the whole fracas, that they were really unable to answer, and I was for the moment so much taken by surprise, that I could not find words to reply. At this moment, covered with dust and blood, for the whip had cut his face in several places, without his hat, and with all his gay attire besmeared and rent, G— again came up towards the carriage.
He was very pale, nay white, even to the lips—but it was evidently not with terror but with rage, as his first words testified—
“Monsieur le Comte de Chavannes,” he said, slowly, “car je vous connais, et vous me connaîtrez aussi, je vous le jure; vous m’avez frappé, vous me rendrez satisfaction, n’est-ce pas?”
“Oh! no, no,” I exclaimed, before he could answer, clasping my hands eagerly together, “oh, no, no! not on my account, I implore you, Monsieur le Comte—no life on my account—above all, not yours!”
He thanked me by one expressive glance, which spoke volumes to my heart, and perhaps read volumes in return, in my pale face and trembling lips, then turned with a calm smile to his late antagonist, and answered him in English. “I do not know in the least, sir, who you are, and I do not suppose that I ever shall know. I chastised you, five minutes since, for insulting this lady most grossly—”
“Lady!” interrupted the ruffian, with a sneer. “Lady. Lady of plea—”
But the Count went on without pausing or seeming to hear him—“which I should have done at all events, whether I had known you or not, and which I shall most assuredly do again, should you think fit to proceed further with your infamies. As for satisfaction, if I should be called upon in a proper way, I shall not refuse it to any person worthy to meet me.”
“Which this person is not, sir,” interposed yet a third voice; and, looking up, I recognised the officer who had bowed to me: “which this person is not, I assure you, and my word is wont to be sufficient in such cases—Lieutenant-Colonel Jervis,”—he added, with a half bow to me,—“late of His Majesty’s — Light Dragoons. This person is the notorious Monsieur G—, who was detected cheating at écarté at the ‘Travellers,’ was a defaulter on the St Leger in the St Patrick’s year, has been warned off every race-course in England, by the Jockey Club, besides being horsewhipped by half the Legs in England. He can get no gentleman to bring you a message, sir; and if he could, you must not meet him.”
Gnashing his teeth with impotent rage, the detected impostor slunk away, while the Count, bowing to Colonel Jervis, replied quietly—