"I have excellent
reasons for not desiring to meet Monsieur de Marsac."
"Excellent, indeed, are they!" lisped Saint-Eustache, with an ugly
droop at the corners of his mouth. "I doubt not you'll find it
hard to offer a plausible reason for having left him and his sister
without news that you were alive."
"Monsieur," said I at random, "why will you drag in his sister's
name?"
"Why?" he echoed, and he eyed me with undisguised amusement. He
was standing erect, his head thrown back, his right arm outstretched
from the shoulder, and his hand resting lightly upon the gold mount
of his beribboned cane. He let his eyes wander from me to Roxalanne,
then back again to me. At last: "Is it wonderful that I should
drag in the name of your betrothed?" said he. "But perhaps you will
deny that Mademoiselle de Marsac is that to you?" he suggested.
And I, forgetting for the moment the part I played and the man whose
identity I had put on, made answer hotly: "I do deny it."
"Why, then, you lie," said he, and shrugged hits shoulders with
insolent contempt.
In all my life I do not think it could be said of me that I had ever
given way to rage. Rude, untutored minds may fall a prey to passion,
but a gentleman, I hold, is never angry. Nor was I then, so far as
the outward signs of anger count. I doffed my hat with a sweep to
Roxalanne, who stood by with fear and wonder blending in her glance.
"Mademoiselle, you will forgive that I find it necessary to birch
this babbling schoolboy in your presence.
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