“The humour of the thing!” gurgled Garnache, his eyes starting from his head. Then out leapt that temper of his like an eager hound that has been suddenly unleashed. He brought down his clenched hand upon the table, caught in passing a flagon, and sent it crashing to the floor. If there was a table near at hand when his temper went, he never failed to treat it so.
“Par la mort Dieu! monsieur, you see but the humour of it, do you? And what of that poor child who is lying there, suffering this incarceration because of her fidelity to a promise given you?”
The statement was hardly fully accurate. But it served its purpose. The other’s face became instantly, grave.
“Calm yourself, I beg, monsieur,” he cried, raising a soothing hand. “I have offended you somewhere; that is plain. There is something here that I do not altogether understand. You say that Valerie has suffered on account of a promise given me? To what are you referring?”
“They hold her a prisoner, monsieur, because they wish to wed her to Marius,” answered Garnache, striving hard to cool his anger.
“Parfaitement! That much I understood.”
“Well, then, monsieur, is the rest not plain? Because she is betrothed to you—” He paused. He saw, at last, that he was stating something not altogether accurate. But the other took his meaning there and then, lay back in his chair, and burst out laughing.
The blood hummed through Garnache’s head as he tightened his lips and watched this gentleman indulge his inexplicable mirth. Surely Monsieur de Condillac was possessed of the keenest sense of humour in all France. He laughed with a will, and Garnache sent up a devout prayer that the laugh might choke him. The noise of it filled the hostelry.
“Sir,” said Garnache, with an ever-increasing tartness, “there is a by-word has it ‘Much laughter, little wit.’ In confidence won, is that your case, monsieur?”
The other looked at him soberly a moment, then went off again.