The old man glanced about him like one who seeks a way of escape. At last—“If say it you must,” he growled, “say it here and now. And when you have said it, go.”
Eugène scowled at me, and from me to Andrea. To pay him for that scowl, I had it in my mind to stay; but, overcoming the clownish thought, I took Andrea by the arm.
“Come, Andrea,” I said, “we will take a turn outside while these family matters are in discussion.”
I had a shrewd idea what was the substance of Eugène's mission to Canaples—to expostulate with his father touching the proposed marriage of Yvonne to the Cardinal's nephew.
Nor was I wrong, for when, some moments later, the Chevalier recalled us from the terrace, where we were strolling—“What think you he has come hither to tell me?” he inquired as we entered. He pointed to his son as he spoke, and passion shook his slender frame as the breeze shakes a leaf. Mademoiselle and Geneviève sat hand in hand—Yvonne deadly pale, Geneviève weeping.
“What think you he has the effrontery to say? Têtedieu! it seems that he has profited little by the lesson you read him in the horse-market about meddling in matters which concern him not. He has come hither to tell me that he will not permit his sister to wed the Cardinal's nephew; that he will not have the estates of Canaples pass into the hands of a foreign upstart. He, forsooth—he! he! he!” And at each utterance of the pronoun he lunged with his forefinger in the direction of his son. “This he is not ashamed to utter before Yvonne herself!”
“You compelled me to do so,” cried Eugène angrily.
“I?” ejaculated the Chevalier. “Did I compel you to come hither with your 'I will' and 'I will not'? Who are you, that you should give laws at Canaples? And he adds, sir,” quoth the old knight excitedly, “that sooner than allow this marriage to take place he will kill M. de Mancini.”
“I shall be happy to afford him the opportunity!” shouted Andrea, bounding forward.
Eugène looked up quickly and gave a short laugh. Thereupon followed a wild hubbub; everyone rushed forward and everyone talked; even little Geneviève—louder than all the rest.