"When I have slain you," the Prince said, "yes. Yes, since she is a woman, and woman is the weaker vessel."
"The reservation is wise. For once I am dead, Messire Edward, there will be none to know that you risk all for a drained goblet, for an orange already squeezed—quite dry, messire."
"Face of God!" the Prince said.
But de Gâtinais flung back both arms in a great gesture, so that he knocked a flask of claret from the table at his rear. "I am candid, my Prince. I would not see any brave gentleman slain in a cause so foolish. And in consequence I kiss and tell. In effect, I was eloquent, I was magnificent—so that in the end her reserve was shattered like the wooden flask yonder at our feet. Is it worth while, think you, that our blood flow like this flagon's contents?"
"Liar!" Prince Edward said, very softly. "O hideous liar! Already your eyes shift!" He drew near and struck the Frenchman. "Talk and talk and talk! and lying talk! I am ashamed while I share the world with a thing so base as you."
De Gâtinais hurled upon him, cursing, sobbing in an abandoned fury. In an instant the place resounded like a smithy, for there were no better swordsmen living than these two. The eavesdropper could see nothing clearly. Round and round they veered in a whirl of turmoil. Presently Prince Edward trod upon the broken flask, smashing it. His foot slipped in the spilth of wine, and the huge body went down like an oak, the head of it striking one leg of the table.
"IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY" Painting by William Hurd Lawrence
"A candle!" de Gâtinais cried, and he panted now—"a hundred candles to the Virgin of Beaujolais!" He shortened his sword to stab the Prince of England.