Citizen Fusilier made himself larger.
"What is prejudice? I do not know."
"I am an American myself," said Frowenfeld, rising up with his face burning.
The citizen rose up also, but unruffled.
"My beloved young friend," laying his hand heavily upon the other's shoulder, "you are not. You were merely born in America."
But Frowenfeld was not appeased.
"Hear me through," persisted the flatterer. "You were merely born in America. I, too, was born in America--but will any man responsible for his opinion mistake me--Agricola Fusilier--for an American?"
He clutched his cane in the middle and glared around, but no person seemed to be making the mistake to which he so scornfully alluded, and he was about to speak again when an outcry of alarm coming simultaneously from Joseph and the marchande directed his attention to a lady in danger.
The scene, as afterward recalled to the mind of the un-American citizen, included the figures of his nephew and the new governor returning up the road at a canter; but, at the time, he knew only that a lady of unmistakable gentility, her back toward him, had just gathered her robes and started to cross the road, when there was a general cry of warning, and the marchande cried, "Garde choual!" while the lady leaped directly into the danger and his nephew's horse knocked her to the earth!
Though there was a rush to the rescue from every direction, she was on her feet before any one could reach her, her lips compressed, nostrils dilated, cheek burning, and eyes flashing a lady's wrath upon a dismounted horseman. It was the governor. As the crowd had rushed in, the startled horses, from whom the two riders had instantly leaped, drew violently back, jerking their masters with them and leaving only the governor in range of the lady's angry eye.