"Calm yourself, my father," said Marie; "he has not demanded satisfaction. He has, however, discovered that Louise is still alive and desires explanations of the deceit of which he was a victim."
"There! What said I? Was I not right? Let me rise—I will rise, I say, Marie; I am ready; the necessary explanations I shall give; he shall have them at the rapier's point. Out of my way—thanks be to the Seigneur that I shall yet fight another fight before I die!"
"My father, you cannot—you are stiff—it is impossible," Marie protested; but the irate old man shook her off and sprang out of bed. But the exertion gave him so agonising a twinge in all his muscles that he uttered a cry of pain and collapsed in a sitting position upon his bed.
"Morbleu!" he groaned, "it is anguish to move my limbs. What is to be done? He shall postpone the meeting until I can walk. One week will suffice. Go down—tell him so, Marie."
The old man almost wept for chagrin and disappointment.
"Nay, I dare not go," said Marie. "It is Louise that he would see, not me; I fear his anger if I should appear and not Louise."
"Alas, Marie, that I should be the parent of a coward," Dupré groaned. "Do you not see that it is inadvisable that Louise and this man should meet? Have you forgotten the foolishness that he uttered concerning your sister? Louise shall live to be a Marshal of France, yet this fool would persuade her, if he could, to waste the glory of a career in silly dreams of love—drag her down to the level of the sex from which, by her splendid achievement, she has emancipated herself! Speak, Louise—repudiate this folly—assert yourself!"
"Mon père, it may be that Louise, like myself, possesses the instincts of a woman," said Marie, fighting on her sister's behalf; "be not hard upon her; maybe——"
"Let me speak, Marie," said Louise. "Mon père, it is certain that this Baron d'Estreville must be very angry with us all, and wishes to fight. I have an idea. The Baron knows nothing of Michel Prevost, that he and I are one. He is determined, it seems, to see me. Send me with a message, that you will have no man but Prevost for a son-in-law, and that if the Baron would aspire to claim your daughter, he must fight this Michel Prevost for her. Now the Baron is but a poor fencer, and it is certain that I, as Michel, would soon better him in a set-to with our rapiers."
"Parbleu!" exclaimed old Dupré, "it is good—it is excellent! Sapristi, my daughter, you are a genius in diplomacy as well as in arms! Listen to her, Marie, and learn! And you would have set her down to become this wretched fellow's drudge. Mort de ma vie, Louise, I thank the Almighty that you are not as your sister would believe you to be! Yes, yes, go down, chérie, and arrange this matter—it is good! But stay, declare first that Marie has spoken nonsense—that you have forgotten your woman's instincts—that glory and the career come first in your estimation, that——"