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Updated: May 29, 2025
"But the question, Monsieur le President!" I thundered, my hand outstretched towards Chatellerault. "Ask him if you have any sense of your duty ask him am I not Marcel de Bardelys." "Silence!" blazed the President back at me. "You shall not fool us any longer, you nimble-witted liar!" My head drooped. This coward had, indeed, shattered my last hope.
Have I not said that this Bardelys was become a coward? Then my cowardice suggested a course to me flight. I would leave Lavedan. I would return to Paris and to Chatellerault, owning defeat and paying my wager. It was the only course open to me. My honour, so tardily aroused, demanded no less.
And so they plagued him and bewildered him until his choice was made; and even then a couple of them held themselves in readiness behind his chair to forestall his slightest want. Indeed, had he been the very King himself, no greater honour could we have shown him at the Hotel de Bardelys.
You imagine your courage above dispute because by a lucky accident you killed La Vertoile some years ago and the fame of it has attached to you." In the intensity of his anger he was breathing heavily, like a man overburdened. "You have been living ever since by the reputation which that accident gave you. Let us see if you can die by it, Monsieur de Bardelys."
I never had cause to think over-well of Bardelys, but had you not told me yourself, I should have hesitated to believe him so vile a despoiler of innocence, such a perverter of youth." He crimsoned to the very roots of his hair. Roxalanne broke into a laugh. "My cousin, my cousin," she cried, "they that would become masters should begin early, is it not so?"
What, then, could it have availed me to have made appeal to him? And yet, Monsieur le President, he was born a gentleman, and he may still retain some notion of honour. Ask him, sir ask him point-blank, whether I am or not Marcel de Bardelys." The firmness of my tones created some impression upon those feeble minds.
If you would know a woman, go to Lavedan, Monsieur le Marquis. If you would have your army of amorous wiles suffer a defeat at last, go employ it against the citadel of Roxalanne de Lavedan's heart. If you would be humbled in your pride, betake yourself to Lavedan." "A challenge!" roared a dozen voices. "A challenge, Bardelys!"
This was a Burgundy of which Monsieur le Marquis thought highly, and this a delicate Lombardy wine that His Majesty had oft commended. Or perhaps Monsieur de Chatellerault would prefer to taste the last vintage of Bardelys?
That act, however, served to arouse me to a sense of my position. What did I there? It was a profanity a defiling, I swore; from which you'll see, that Bardelys was grown of a sudden very nice. "Monsieur," she was saying, "you are exhausted."
For a moment the temptation to confess, to tell her everything, was again upon me. But the futility of it appalled me. "Don't ask me," I besought her; "you will learn it soon enough." For I was confident that once my wager was paid, the news of it and of the ruin of Bardelys would spread across the face of France like a ripple over water. Presently
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