The Duc had calculated the effect of his abrupt speech. Othmar, on whose features the full light was falling from a window of which the curtains had been drawn back for the examination of Cabanel’s portrait, changed colour violently, and his whole face expressed the force of conflicting emotions with which he was moved. Yseulte watched him, fascinated with a vague terror; she had never seen him violently moved under the influence of any strong feeling.
Friederich Othmar, alone retaining his calmness, answered in amazement: ‘Napraxine! Napraxine dead! Are you certain? I saw him last night at midnight; he was in full health and spirits.’
‘Nevertheless he is dead,’ said De Vannes, keeping his gaze on Othmar; and he related the circumstances of the duel.
Othmar listened in profound silence; he had recovered his self-control, but the colour had not returned to his face.
‘What was the cause?’ asked Friederich Othmar, when he had heard all that there was to hear.
Alain de Vannes shrugged his shoulders.
‘De Prangins had spoken jestingly of the Princess—and someone else. Napraxine heard of it through some lamentable indiscretion; he insulted the old Duke; and the result is what I have said. He was run through the lungs and died in a few moments. De Prangins relieved Madame Napraxine of a troublesome lad in young d’Ivrea; he has now done her a still greater service by ridding her of the only ennui in her life which she was sometimes compelled to endure. I do not know who told her what had happened, but the body of Napraxine has already been taken to his house. The duel was fought in a private garden at Versailles.’
Then he paused, having no more to say, and, like a good orator, being unwilling to destroy by detail and diffuseness the effect of his unexpected statement.
Othmar muttered a few sentences of conventional regret and turned away to where the picture stood. Yseulte followed him with wistful eyes. She felt that the news had shocked and startled him strangely, but she was afraid to seem to have remarked his agitation. After a few moments he made some trivial excuse, and left the room.
Friederich Othmar resumed his occupation of examining Cabanel’s work through a lorgnon: people whom he knew died every day; it was not such a simple event as that which could cause him any excitement, and Platon Napraxine, though a very great person in his own way, had no place in the public life of Europe.