“Your former welcome to me on three occasions when the object of my visits was as well known to you as to me, gives me, at least, the vested rights of a final interview. I demand it,” retorted Gaston curtly.
“And I refuse it!” Still there was a note of indecision in his voice which Gaston was quick to catch.
“General,” he protested, “you are a soldier and a gentleman. You never fought an enemy with uncivilised warfare. Yet you have allowed some one under your protection to stab me in the dark for the past year. I am entitled to know why I fight and against whom. I ask your sense of fairness as a soldier if I am not right?”
The General hesitated, and finally said, as he opened the door, “Walk into the parlour.”
When they were seated, Gaston plunged immediately into the question he had at heart.
“Now, General, I wish to ask you plainly why you have treated me as you have since I asked you for your daughter’s hand?”
“The less said about it, the better. I have good and sufficient reasons, and that settles it.”
“But I have the right to know them.”
“What right?”
“The right of every man to face his accuser when on trial for his life.”