"Two distinguished families of Poitou," Monsieur D'Estanges said, courteously. "It needed not that, to tell me that you were of good blood. I regret much that this encounter is going to take place. Monsieur Raoul de Fontaine was in the wrong, in so rudely hailing you, and I cannot blame you for taking it up sharply; although, seeing your age and his, and that he is a good swordsman, it might have been more prudent to have overlooked his manner.
"Unless, indeed," and he smiled, "Monsieur Raoul was right, and that you are engaged on some weighty matter here, and preferred to run the risk of getting yourself killed rather than have it inquired into. The Countess of Laville and her son are both staunch Huguenots, and you may well be on business here that you would not care to have investigated.
"You have not asked my name, sir. It is Charles D'Estanges. I am a cousin of the Duc de Guise, and am naturally of the court party; but I can esteem a brave enemy, and regret to see one engaged in an encounter in which he must needs be overmatched."
"I am a fair swordsman, sir," Philip said; "though my arm may lack somewhat of the strength it will have, a few years later. But had it been otherwise, I should have still taken the course I have. I do not say your conjecture is a correct one, but at any rate I would prefer the most unequal fight to being seized and questioned. One can but be killed once, and it were better that it should be by a thrust in the open air than a long imprisonment, ending perhaps with death at the stake."
Monsieur D'Estanges said no more. In spite of his relationship with the Guises he, like many other French Catholic nobles, disapproved of the persecutions of the Huguenots, and especially of the massacres perpetrated by the lower orders in the towns, men for whom he had the profoundest contempt. He felt sorry for his companion, whose youth and fearless demeanour moved him in his favour; and who, he doubted not, had come to Agen to confer with some of the Huguenots, who were to be found in every town.
Issuing from the gates, they went for a quarter of a mile along the road, and then Raoul led the way into a small wood. Here, without a word being spoken, Raoul and Philip threw aside their cloaks and doublets.
"Gentlemen," Monsieur D'Estanges said, "surely this quarrel might be arranged without fighting. Monsieur de Fontaine addressed my principal, doubtless under a misapprehension, with some roughness, which was not unnaturally resented. If Monsieur de Fontaine will express his regret, which he certainly could do without loss of dignity, for the manner in which he spoke; my principal would, I am sure, gladly accept his apology."
"That is my opinion also," Louis de Fontaine said, "and I have already expressed it to my cousin."
"And I have already said that I will do nothing of the sort," Raoul said. "I am fighting not only in my own quarrel, but in that of the king; being well assured in my mind that this young man, whether he be, as he now appears, a gentleman of birth, or whether, as I saw him last, a peasant boy, is engaged in some plot hostile to his majesty."
"Then there is nothing more to be said," Monsieur D'Estanges said gravely; "but before you begin, I may tell you, Monsieur de Fontaine, that this gentleman belongs to a family no less noble than your own. He has confided to me his name and position, which I think it as well not to divulge.