Hitherto Arthur's grandest achievements in the sporting world had culminated in a couple of broken collar-bones and a quantity of lost wagers,--today their number had been increased by a trifling fiasco.
A very trifling fiasco, but of a highly delicate nature. Two Austrians, an attaché and one of his friends at present in Paris, both belonging to extremely aristocratic families, had lately out of wild caprice, and amid much laughter, undertaken to run a foot-race backwards.
Several French journals had taken immediate occasion to write articles on this eccentric wager, describing backward races as a traditional and very favourite sport among the youthful aristocrats of Austria. These journalistic rhapsodies had incited Arthur Capriani to arrange a similar race with brilliant accessories, music, torchlight, and a large assemblage of young dandies, and ladies of every description. He lost the race, got a severe contusion on his head, and the next day appeared the article in Figaro which so exasperated the Conte.
"If you were only capable of something in the world beside making yourself ridiculous!" Zoë distinctly heard the father's excited voice say, "but you can do nothing else, nothing! And to think of my toiling for you,--making money for you!"
"Mon Dieu! you make money because you delight in nothing else," retorted young Capriani.
"And for you--for you, I am contemplating one of the most brilliant matches in Austria," the Conte fairly shouted, "'tis ridiculous!"
"I fancy that Count Truyn agrees with you there," was Arthur's repartee.
"Ah, you would, would you?--you dare to sneer at your father?" Capriani burst forth, after the illogical fashion of angry men, "the father to whom you owe everything! I should like to see you begin life as I did, bare-footed, with only one gulden in your pocket!"
"What's the use of these recriminations?" drawled the son, "your antecedents mortify me enough without them, and ...."
There was a incoherent cry, a savage word ....!