"No, I do not!" I answered passionately. "But I have held Mademoiselle in my arms, and she has laid her head on my breast, and you can undo neither the one nor the other. Henceforth I have a right to woo her, and I shall win her."
"While I live you never shall!" he answered fiercely. "I swear that, as she trod on that ribbon--at my word, at my word, Monsieur!--so she shall tread on your love. From this day seek a wife among your friends. Mademoiselle de St. Alais is not for you."
I trembled with rage. "You know, Monsieur, that I cannot fight you!" I said.
"Nor I you," he answered. "I know it. Therefore," he continued, pausing an instant and reverting with marvellous ease to his former politeness, "I will fly from you. Farewell, Monsieur--I do not say, until we meet again; for I do not think that we shall meet much in future."
I found nothing wherewith to answer that, and he turned and moved' away down the avenue. Mademoiselle and her escort had disappeared; his servants, obeying my gesture, were almost at the gates. I watched his figure as he rode under the boughs of the walnuts, that meeting low over his head let the sun fall on him through spare rifts; and, sore and miserable at heart myself, I marvelled at the gallant air he maintained, and the careless grace of his bearing.
Certainly he had force. He had the force his fellows lacked; and he had it so abundantly, that as I gazed after him the words I had used to him seemed weak and foolish, the resolution I had flung in his teeth childish. After all, he was right; this, to which my feelings had impelled me on the spur of anger and love and the moment, was no French or proper way of wooing, nor one which I should have relished in my sister's case. Why then had I degraded Mademoiselle by it, and exposed myself? Men wooed mistresses that way, not wives!
So that I felt very wretched as I turned to go into the house. But there my eye alighted on the pistols which still lay on the table in the hall, and with a sudden revulsion of feeling I remembered that others' affairs were out of order too; that the Châteaux of St. Alais and Marignac lay in ashes, that last night I had saved Mademoiselle from death, that beyond the walnut avenue with its cool, long shade and dappled floor, beyond the quiet of this summer day, lay the seething, brawling world of Quercy and of France--the world of maddened peasants and frightened townsfolk, and soldiers who would not fight, and nobles who dared not.
Then, Vive le Tricolor! the die was cast. I went through the house to find Father Benôit and his companions, meaning to throw in my lot and return with them. But the terrace was empty; they were nowhere to be seen. Even of the servants I could only find André, who came pottering to me with his lips pursed up to grumble. I asked him where the Curé was.
"Gone, M. le Vicomte."
"And Buton?"