The Trampling of the Lilies | Page 7

An inarticulate grunt came
from his thick lips.
"Canaille!" he exclaimed, through set teeth. "Can you have presumed
so far?"
He carried a riding-switch, and he seemed to grasp it now in a manner
peculiarly menacing. But La Boulaye was nothing daunted. Lost he
already accounted himself, and on the strength of the logic that if a man
must hang, a sheep as well as a lamb may be the cause of it, he took
what chances the time afforded him to pile up his debt.
"There is neither insolence nor presumption in what I have done," he
answered, giving back the Marquis look for look and scowl for scowl.
"You deem it so because I am the secretary to the Marquis de Bellecour
and she is the daughter of that same Marquis. But these are no more
than the fortuitous circumstances in which we chance to find ourselves.
That she is a woman must take rank before the fact that she is your
daughter, and that I am a man must take rank before the fact that I am
your secretary. Not, then, as your secretary speaking to your daughter
have I told this lady that I love her, but as a man speaking to a woman.
To utter that should be - nay, is - the right of every man; to hear it
should be honouring to every woman worthy of the name. In a
primitive condition - "
"A thousand devils!" blazed the Marquis, unable longer to contain
himself. "Am I to have my ears offended by this braying? Miserable
scum, you shall be taught what is due to your betters."
His whip cracked suddenly, and the lash leapt serpentlike into the air,
to descend and coil itself about La Boulaye's head and face. A cry

broke from the young man, as much of pain as of surprise, and as the
lash was drawn back, he clapped his hands to his seared face. But again
he felt it, cutting him now across the hand with which he had masked
himself. With a maddened roar he sprang upon his aggressor. In height
he was the equal of the Marquis, but in weight he seemed to be scarce
more than the half of his opponent's. Yet a nervous strength dwelt
unsuspected in those lean arms and steely wrists.
Mademoiselle stood by looking on, with parted lips and eyes that were
intent and anxious. She saw that figure, spare and lithe as a greyhound,
leap suddenly upon her father, and the next instant the whip was in the
secretary's hands, and he sprang back from the nobleman, who stood
white and quivering with rage, and perhaps, too, with some dismay.
"That I do not break it across your back, M. le Marquis, said the young
man, as he snapped the whip on his knee, "you may thank your years."
With that he flung the two pieces wide into the sunlit waters of the
brook. "But I will have satisfaction, Monsieur. I will take payment for
this." And he pointed to the weal that disfigured his face.
"Satisfaction?" roared the Marquis, hoarse in his passion. "Would you
demand satisfaction of me, animal?"
"No," answered the young man, with a wry smile. "Your years again
protect you. But you have a son, and if by to-morrow it should come to
pass that you have a son no more, you may account yourself, through
this" - and again he pointed to the weal - "his murderer."
"Do you mean that you would seek to cross swords with the Vicomte?"
gasped the nobleman, in an unbelief so great that it gained the
ascendency over his anger.
"That is what I mean, Monsieur. In practice he has often done so. He
shall do so for once in actual earnest."
"Fool!" was the contemptuous answer, more coldly delivered now, for
the Marquis was getting himself in hand. "If you come near Bellecour
again, if you are so much as found within the grounds of the park, I'll

have you beaten to death by my grooms for your presumption. Keep
you the memory of that promise in mind, Sir Secretary, and let it warn
you to avoid Bellecour, as you would a plague-house. Come, Suzanne,"
he said, turning abruptly to his daughter, "Enough of this delightful
morning have we already wasted on this canaille."
With that he offered her his wrist, and so, without so much as another
glance at La Boulaye, she took her departure.
The secretary remained where they had left him, pale of face - saving
the fortuitous crimson mark which the whip had cut - and very sick at
heart. The heat of the moment being spent, he had leisure to
contemplate his plight. A scorned lover, a beaten man, a dismissed
secretary! He looked