"His officers have forbidden him to fight with an inferior."
"There remains the certainty of a caning."
"What do you wish to be done?"
"That Monsieur de Léry should merely say off hand before his friends that what he had told of Monsieur Lecour was said at hazard."
"Then, sir, tell the Chevalier de Bailleul that when I said I was willing to arrange that affair amicably I did not know that he would dare to propose that I commence by consenting to the formal and complete dishonour of Monsieur de Léry. Judge, now, whether a proposal of the sort could be made to me about the cousin-germain of my children?"
"Excuse me, Marquis, this was not exactly my meaning, nor that of Monsieur de Bailleul."
"Inform Monsieur de Bailleul," cried de Lotbinière, "that he must feel it impossible, and that all is finished and over by the orders given to each of them by their respective adjutants."
"No, sir," the stranger sternly cried, in reply, "all is not finished, for so unpardonable have been the offences of Monsieur de Léry towards Monsieur Lecour that only one of them must live."
"Then let him kill Lecour instead of some one of his comrades, who would make life intolerable to him were he to show himself such a coward as you have proposed. Has he not proved a brave man to have fought so often, and with that fellow so below his dignity? As for me, knowing what I owe to myself, I should refuse most scrupulously to compromise myself with any one who was not of my station. Were I attacked in a street by such a man, I should defend my life with the greatest spirit; but never under the arrangements of an affair en règle. Such has always been my way of conduct, according to the truest principles of honour."
"Of honour!" the stranger exclaimed sarcastically; "and who taught de Léry to apply these principles to a fellow Bodyguard?"