“M. le Marquis is in the right?” Andre-Louis
let his arms fall helplessly. This man he loved
above all other living men was caught in the snare
of the world’s insanity. He was baring
his breast to the knife for the sake of a vague, distorted
sense of the honour due to himself. It was not
that he did not see the trap. It was that his
honour compelled him to disdain consideration of it.
To Andre-Louis in that moment he seemed a singularly
tragic figure. Noble, perhaps, but very pitiful.
THE HERITAGE
It was M. de Vilmorin’s desire that the matter
should be settled out of hand. In this he was
at once objective and subjective. A prey to
emotions sadly at conflict with his priestly vocation,
he was above all in haste to have done, so that he
might resume a frame of mind more proper to it.
Also he feared himself a little; by which I mean
that his honour feared his nature. The circumstances
of his education, and the goal that for some years
now he had kept in view, had robbed him of much of
that spirited brutality that is the birthright of
the male. He had grown timid and gentle as a
woman. Aware of it, he feared that once the heat
of his passion was spent he might betray a dishonouring
weakness, in the ordeal.
M. le Marquis, on his side, was no less eager for
an immediate settlement; and since they had M. de
Chabrillane to act for his cousin, and Andre-Louis
to serve as witness for M. de Vilmorin, there was
nothing to delay them.
And so, within a few minutes, all arrangements were
concluded, and you behold that sinisterly intentioned
little group of four assembled in the afternoon sunshine
on the bowling-green behind the inn. They were
entirely private, screened more or less from the windows
of the house by a ramage of trees, which, if leafless
now, was at least dense enough to provide an effective
lattice.
There were no formalities over measurements of blades
or selection of ground. M. le Marquis removed
his sword-belt and scabbard, but declined —
not considering it worth while for the sake of so negligible
an opponent — to divest himself either of his
shoes or his coat. Tall, lithe, and athletic,
he stood to face the no less tall, but very delicate
and frail, M. de Vilmorin. 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. Facing him on
the other side of the combatants stood Andre-Louis,
the palest of the four, staring from fevered eyes,
twisting and untwisting clammy hands.
