“To that, M. le Duc, there is an obvious and ancient retort—that therein he is like a potato plant; the best of him is buried.”
Argyll stood before the Frenchman dubious and embarrassed; vexed at the tone of the encounter, and convinced, for reasons of his own, that in one particular at least the foreigner prevaricated, yet impressed by the manly front of the gentleman whose affair had brought a morning's tragedy so close upon the heels of an evening's mirth. Here was the sort of quandary in which he would naturally have consulted with his Duchess, but it was no matter to wake a woman to, and she was still in her bed-chamber.
“I assume you look for this unhappy business to be treated as an affair of honour?” he asked at last.
“So to call it,” replied Count Victor, “though in truth, the honour, on my word, was all on one side.”
“You are in doubtful taste to put it quite in these terms,” said the Duke more sternly, “particularly as you are the one to come out of it so far scathless.”
“Would M. le Duc know how his servant compelled my—my attentions?”
“Compelled your attentions! I do not like the tone of your speeches, monsieur. Dignity—”
“Pardieu! M. le Duc, would you expect a surfeit of dignity from a man without a jacket?” said the Count, looking pathetically at his arms.
“Dignity—I mean the sense of it—would dictate a more sober carriage in face of the terrible act you have committed. I am doing my best to find the slightest excuse for you, because you are a stranger here, a man of good family though engaged upon a stupendous folly, and I have before now been in the reverence of your people. You ask me if I know what compelled your attention (as you say) to my Chamberlain, and I will answer you frankly that I know all that is necessary.”
At that the Count was visibly amazed. This was, indeed, to put a new face on matters and make more regrettable his complacent surrender after his affair on the sands.