aggressiveness would be hard to surpass, I strode up to their table, and stood for a moment surveying them with an insolent stare that made them pause in their conversation. They raised their noble heads and bestowed upon me a look of haughty and disdainful wonder,—such a look as one might bestow upon a misbehaving lackey,—all save Vilmorin, who, with a coward's keen nose for danger, turned slightly pale and fidgeted in his chair. I was well known to all of them, but my attitude forbade all greeting.
“Has M. de Luynes lost anything?” St. Auban inquired icily.
“His wits, mayhap,” quoth Canaples with a contemptuous shrug.
He was a tall, powerfully built man, this Canaples, with a swart, cruel face that was nevertheless not ill-favoured, and a profusion of black hair.
“There is a temerity in M. de Canaples's rejoinder that I had not looked for,” I said banteringly.
Canaples's brow was puckered in a frown.
“Ha! And why not, Monsieur?”
“Why not? Because it is not to be expected that one who fastens quarrels upon schoolboys would evince the courage to beard Gaston de Luynes.”
“Monsieur!” the four of them cried in chorus, so loudly that the hum of voices in the tavern became hushed, and all eyes were turned in our direction.
“M. de Canaples,” I said calmly, “permit me to say that I can find no more fitting expression for the contempt I hold you in than this.”
As I spoke I seized a corner of the tablecloth, and with a sudden tug I swept it, with all it held, on to the floor.
Dame! what a scene there was! In an instant the four of them were on their feet,—as were half the occupants of the room, besides,—whilst poor Vilmorin, who stood trembling like a maid who for the first time hears words of love, raised his quavering voice to cry soothingly, “Messieurs, Messieurs!”
Canaples was livid with passion, but otherwise the calmest in that room, saving perhaps myself. With a gesture he restrained Montmédy and St. Auban.
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