And now in that direction a figure wearing the green cross-belt of the company of Villeroy rose, pale, aristocratic, coldly calm, and said, "I am de Léry."
The pallor that suddenly blanched Lecour's countenance as he turned in the direction of the voice left it as quickly when he fully faced his opponent. He measured him instantaneously, and the man he saw became stamped indelibly on his mind's eye—a picture, in typical contemptuous perfection of feature and dress, of the French aristocracy of the old régime. The very chair on the back of which his hand rested seemed a part of the type—one of those beautiful white chairs of the period, on which, on snowy, glittering tapestry, was woven a Fable of Lafontaine in matchless Gobelin dyes.
"Do you admit, sir, that you have defamed me?" Lecour cried, grasping the hilt of his sword and advancing a foot.
"I defame nobody," Louis answered coldly.
"Have you not disseminated statements that my name is stolen?"
"I have said that the noble designation of Répentigny did not belong to you—that its rightful owners are my uncle the Marquis of Répentigny, now in Paris, and his family."
"Did you not know——"
"Stay, sir. I have also asserted that you are an impostor, the son of a tradesman of Canada, formerly a private soldier of the Marquis de Lotbinière, and that you have not the slightest claim to consort with gentlemen, still less to belong to the Bodyguard, and less again to become an officer."
"Liar! liar! liar! Léry, it is you who are the impostor! You are afraid of those who can tell the truth about you, but I did not conceive that you would carry our colonial jealousies so far as this. Do you persist or do you retract?"
"The scene becomes disagreeable," said some of those present to each other.