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Updated: May 9, 2025
Also it is to be remembered that Chabrillane had gone confidently to the meeting, conceiving that he, a practised ferailleur, had to deal with a bourgeois utterly unskilled in swordsmanship. Morally, then, he was little better than a murderer, and that he should have tumbled into the pit he conceived that he dug for Andre-Louis was a poetic retribution.
M. de Chabrillane had just left him, and he confessed himself deeply grieved and deeply perplexed. "The pity of it!" he said. "The pity of it!" He bowed his enormous head. "So estimable a young man, and so full of promise. Ah, this La Tour d'Azyr is a hard man, and he feels very strongly in these matters. He may be right. I don't know.
Instead, it was M. de Chabrillane who now did the talking, taking up his preconcerted part in this vile game. "You realize, monsieur, what you have done," said he, coldly, to Philippe. "And you realize, of course, what must inevitably follow." M. de Vilmorin had realized nothing. The poor young man had acted upon impulse, upon the instinct of decency and honour, never counting the consequences.
"I'll trouble you not to be amused," snapped the Marquis. "You don't understand." Thereafter he explained himself. It was a rare condescension in him. But, then, he could not bear to be misunderstood in such a matter. Chabrillane grew serious in reflection of the Marquis' extreme seriousness. "Why not write?" he suggested. "Myself, I confess that I should find it easier."
Rudely, violently, he thrust Andre-Louis back, as if to make room for himself under the shelter. Not for a second was Andre-Louis under any delusion as to the man's deliberate purpose, nor were those who stood near him, who made a belated and ineffectual attempt to close about him. He was grievously disappointed. It was not Chabrillane he had been expecting.
And to heighten the irritation, Andre-Louis the actor, Scaramouche always produced his snuffbox, and proffered it with a steady hand to Le Chapelier before helping himself. Chabrillane, it seemed, after all that he had suffered, was not even to be allowed to make a good exit. "Very well, monsieur," he said. "Nine o'clock, then; and we'll see if you'll talk as pertly afterwards."
But he realized them now at the sinister invitation of M. de Chabrillane, and if he desired to avoid these consequences, it was out of respect for his priestly vocation, which strictly forbade such adjustments of disputes as M. de Chabrillane was clearly thrusting upon him. He drew back. "Let one affront wipe out the other," said he, in a dull voice.
There is, after all, nothing very extraordinary in his frame of mind, so that I need not elaborate it further. It resulted from the conflict between the beast and the angel that go to make up the composition of every man. The Chevalier de Chabrillane who in reality occupied towards the Marquis a position akin to that of gentleman-in-waiting sat opposite to him in the enormous travelling berline.
Also his vindictiveness was held curiously in leash. Perhaps he, too, remembered the part played by Chabrillane in the affair at Gavrillac, and saw in this obscure Andre-Louis Moreau, who had so persistently persecuted him ever since, an ordained avenger. The repugnance he felt to come to the point, with him, particularly after this culminating provocation, was puzzling even to himself.
The latter also disdained to make any of the usual preparations. Since he recognized that it could avail him nothing to strip, he came on guard fully dressed, two hectic spots above the cheek-bones burning on his otherwise grey face. M. de Chabrillane, leaning upon a cane for he had relinquished his sword to M. de Vilmorin looked on with quiet interest.
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