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Updated: June 8, 2025
That evening our people skirmished with the English near to their camp and in this skirmish were people taken on each side, and of the English Captain d'Orbec and ten or twelve others, and people wounded on both sides: when night fell each retired to their own quarters."
'Oh! cried Renee, 'do not say it, if ever you should imagine it. Bid Roland speak of him. He is changed, oppressed: I did him a terrible wrong . . . . She checked herself. 'But the chief thing to do is to keep M. d'Henriel away from him. I suspect M. d'Orbec of a design to make them clash: and you, my dear, will explain why, to flatter me.
When they rejoined him he complimented Beauchamp semi-ironically on his choice of the river's quiet charms in preference to the dusty roads. Madame de Rouaillout said, 'Come, M. d'Orbec; what if you surrender your horse to M. Beauchamp, and row me back? He changed colour, hesitated, and declined he had an engagement to call on M. d'Henriel. 'When did you see him? said she. He was confused.
Both M. Livret and M. d'Orbec had forgotten that when Count Henri d'Henriel was received at Tourdestelle, the arrival of the Englishman was pleasantly anticipated by them as an eclipse of the handsome boy; but a foreign interloper is quickly dispossessed of all means of pleasing save that one of taking his departure; and they now talked of Count Henri's disgrace and banishment in a very warm spirit of sympathy, not at all seeing why it should be made to depend upon the movements of this M. Beauchamp, as it appeared to be.
It supplied Beauchamp with an excuse for staying, that he was angry with himself for being pleased to have; so he attacked the practice of duelling, and next the shrug, wherewith M. Livret and M. d'Orbec sought at first to defend the foul custom, or apologize for it, or plead for it philosophically, or altogether cast it off their shoulders; for the literal interpretation of the shrug in argument is beyond human capacity; it is the point of speech beyond our treasury of language.
As to wit, the sneer is the cloak of clumsiness; it is the Pharisee's incense, the hypocrite's pity, the post of exaltation of the fat citizen, etc.; but, said M. Livret, the people using it should have a care that they keep powerful: they make no friends. He terminated with this warning to a nation not devoid of superior merit. M. d'Orbec said less, and was less consoled by his outburst.
'If he would learn that he was fashioned for that purpose! exclaimed little M. Livret. 'Do not ask young men for too much head, my friend; he would cease to be amusing. 'D'Henriel should have been up in the fields at ten this morning, said M. d'Orbec. 'As to his head, I back him for a clever shot. 'Or a duelling-sword, said Renee. 'It is a quality, count it for what we will.
Pleading an apology for the stormy weather, which had detained him, and for his ignorance that so precious an article was at stake, he held, that by the terms of the wager, the glove was lost; the claim to wear it was a matter of taste. 'Matters of taste, monsieur, are not, I think, decided by weapons in your country? said M. d'Orbec. 'We have no duelling, said Beauchamp.
M. Livret's ardour was a contrast to the young Englishman's vacant gaze at Diane, and the symbols of her goddesship running along the walls, the bed, the cabinets, everywhere that the chaste device could find frontage and a corner. M. d'Orbec remained outside the chateau inspecting the fish-ponds.
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