"Young blood is quickly stirred. Young lips are quickly drawn to one another. Young arms are quick to reach out, and young bodies quick to yield to them."
The Count uttered a cry of pain and wrath, his eyes fixed as though upon the very scene the Captain imagined.
"The wretches!" said the tortured Count, staggering to his feet. "And I am the Count de Lavardin!"
"'THE WRETCHES!' SAID THE TORTURED COUNT, STAGGERING TO HIS FEET."
"The greater nobleman you, the greater conquest for a young nobody to boast of. It is a fine thought for adventurous youth.—'A great lord, and a rich, but it is I, an unknown stripling, who really have possessed what he thinks his dearest treasure.'"
The Count gave a kind of agonized moan, and went lurching across the hall, spilling some wine from his glass. "And a man of my years, too!" he said, with an accent of self-pity.