Now the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache was a young man, and in the young
we can forgive much. But to forgive such an act as he had been
guilty of - that of drawing his sword upon a man who carried no
weapons - would have been not only a ridiculous toleration, but an
utter neglect of duty. As an older man it behoved me to read the
Chevalier a lesson in manners and gentlemanly feeling. So, quite
dispassionately, and purely for his own future good, I went about
the task, and administered him a thrashing that for thoroughness it
would be hard to better. I was not discriminating. I brought my
cane down with a rhythmical precision, and whether it took him on
the head, the back, or the shoulders, I held to be more his affair
than mine. I had a moral to inculcate, and the injuries he might
receive in the course of it were inconsiderable details so that the
lesson was borne in upon his soul. Two or three times he sought to
close with me, but I eluded him; I had no mind to descend to a vulgar
exchange of blows. My object was not to brawl, but to administer
chastisement, and this object I may claim to have accomplished with
a fair degree of success.
At last Roxalanne interfered; but only when one blow a little more
violent, perhaps, than its precursors resulted in the sudden snapping
of the cane and Monsieur de Eustache's utter collapse into a moaning
heap.
"I deplore, mademoiselle, to have offended your sight with such a
spectacle, but unless these lessons are administered upon the instant
their effect is not half so salutary.
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