"But you will hardly go so far as to say that it suffices for a man to be my foe, to be your friend," said he with an ugly frown.
"What if it were so?" said she.
"If it were so, I would advise my sister not to provoke me too far. I would advise her not to make any more demonstrations of regard to the little abbe of Savoy, and to remember that she is my sister."
"When I heard of all that took place this morning at the Pre aux
Clercs," said Laura, "I remembered it to my shame and sorrow."
Barbesieur grew pale with rage and hissed into his sister's ear— "Have a care, girl, how you rouse me to retaliation! I can crush you like a worm under my heel; and as for yonder princely beggar, be assured that I shall remember him to his cost."
"Which means that you will bring suit against him, and obtain damages," replied she, contemptuously; "for you know that the Prince of Savoy will not condescend to fight a duel with Barbesieur de Louvois."
"I would not make myself ridiculous by fighting with such an apology for a man; but I will crush him as I would any other reptile that attempts to injure me. There shall not be a day of his life that does not bring him some pang which he shall owe to the hate of Barbesieur de Louvois. And I counsel YOU not to imitate his audacity, for—"
"Why, you scarcely expect me to bestow a horsewhipping upon you?" laughed Laura. "But I am not afraid of you, Barbesieur; it is not in your power to injure me."
"If you are not afraid of me, so much the worse for you; I should have thought that you had learned from your mother, how Barbesieur de Louvois nurses his hate, and how it blossoms into misery for those on whom he bestows it."
Laura's eyes filled with tears, and her voice faltered. "I did learn it from her martyrdom; but she was not like me. She submitted where I would resist."