“Do you mean that for us, monsieur?” asked Madame de Sabran; “since his Highness loves the Burgundy too well to count it a foe, though it has put him on his back, I doubt not, often enough.
“Nay, madame,” answered the Abbé, bowing politely; “such as you can never be foes, since you are born to be conquerors. If it did come to a fight, I presume you would grant no quarter.”
“None,” said she, laughing. “Church and laymen, we should put you all to the sword.”
“But the Church are non-combatants,” interposed Count Point d’Appui, with perfect sincerity. “You would be excommunicated by our Father the Pope. It is a different species, madame, altogether—a separate race.”
“Not a bit of it!” answered the lady. “Men to the tips of their fingers, every one of them! Are you not, Abbé? No! When all is said and done, there are but two distinct creations, and I never can believe they have a common origin. Men and women I put in the one, princes and lackeys in the other. What say you, madame?”
But Madame de Parabére said nothing. She sat in silence, pouting, because it suited the shape of her mouth, and listening, for other reasons of her own.
The Regent, who had now drunk wine enough to be both easily offended and appeased, felt that the shaft aimed at him was not entirely undeserved. So he asked, in anger, “How mean you, madame? I see not the drift of your jest. In what are princes and lackeys so alike, and so different from the rest of mankind?”
“Other bipeds” answered the lady, bitterly, “lie from habit, with intention, or on occasion; but this variety never speaks the truth at all, even by accident.”
The Duke’s face turned purple. Captain George, hoping to divert an explosion, and feeling that he had been invited rather as a compliment than for the sake of his society, rose and took his leave, on the score of military duty; receiving, as he went out, a glance from Madame de Parabére’s beautiful eyes, that assured him of her gratitude, her interest, and her good-will.
His departure changed the subject of conversation. In two minutes the Regent forgot he had been offended, and Madame de Sabran was busied in the unworthy task of mystifying Count Point d’Appui, an employment which her rival contemplated with a drowsy, languid air, as if she could hardly keep herself awake.