“What is this?” inquired the Comte de Barbebiche.
“This is the alternative,” cried the Englishman. “Here are weapons; take your choice—pistols, rapiers, or the gloves. Fight with one of them you must and shall, or abandon your claim to Joan of Arc.”
“Mon Dieu! What Joan of Arc? I do not have the felicity of knowing the lady.”
“You may see her, Am Graben,” gravely replied Milor, “outside a shop door, done in oil.”
“Heh!” exclaimed the astonished Comte, “in oil—an Esquimaux, or a Tartar, pray?”
“Monsieur le Comte, I want no trifling. Do you persist in the purchase of this picture? I have set my heart upon it; I love it; I have sworn to possess it. Make it a matter of money, and I will give you a thousand pounds for your bargain; make it a matter of dispute, and I will fight you for it to the death; make it a matter of friendship, and yield up your right, and I will embrace you as a brother, and be your debtor for the rest of my life.”
The Comte de Barbebiche—seeing that he had to do with an Englishman a degree, at least, more crazed than the rest of his countrymen—entered into the spirit of the matter at once, and chose the easiest means of extricating himself from a difficulty.
“Milor,” he exclaimed, advancing towards him, “I am charmed with your sentiments, your courage, and your integrity. Take her, Milor—take your Joan of Arc; I would not attempt to deprive you of her if she were a real flesh and blood Pucelle, and my own sister.”
The Englishman, with a grand oath, seized the Comte’s hand in both his own, and shook it heartily; then scrambling up his paraphernalia of war, spoke a hurried farewell, and disappeared down the stairs.
The grey of the morning saw Milor in full evening costume, pacing the Graben with hurried steps, watching with anxious eyes the shop front where his beloved was wont to hang. He saw her carried out like a shutter from the house, and duly suspended on the appointed hook. She had lost none of her charms, and he stood with arms folded upon his breast, entranced for awhile before the figure of the valiant maiden.