"Well, I remember," cried De Beuvre, vexed by his friend's defection. "Now, I am ten years younger than you, my friend, and I was not there; I was a page to young Condé, the grandfather of the present one, and a very different man, I promise you."
"Come, come," said Lauriane, venturing upon a most mischievous step in order to pacify her father and turn the quarrel aside from its main subject; "our dear marquis must needs confess that he was at the siege of Sancerre and bore himself valiantly there, for everybody knows it, and modesty alone leads him to refuse to remember it."
"You know very well that I was not there," said Bois-Doré, "since I was here with you."
"Oh! I am not speaking of the last siege, which lasted only twenty-four hours, last May, and which was simply the coup de grâce; I refer to the great, the famous siege of 1572."
Bois-Doré had a horror of dates. He coughed, moved about, and poked the fire, which did not need it; but Lauriane was determined to immolate him under bouquets of praise.
"I know that you were very young," she said, "but even then you fought like a lion."
"It is true that my friends performed wonders," replied Bois-Doré, "and that it was a very hot struggle; but I could not strike very hard, however eager I may have been, at that age."
"Mordi! you took two prisoners yourself!" cried De Beuvre, stamping on the floor. "Look you, it drives me frantic to see a stout-hearted old fighter like you deny his gallant exploits rather than admit his age!"
Bois-Doré was deeply wounded, and his face became sad; it was his only way of manifesting his displeasure to his friends.
Lauriane saw that she had gone too far; for she was sincerely attached to her old neighbor, and when he ceased to laugh at her teasing, she no longer cared to laugh herself.