Count Hannibal smiled. "I knew her father and her uncle," he said, "and
in their time the Vrillacs were not wont to be cowards. Monsieur
forgets, too," he continued with fine irony, "that he speaks of my
betrothed."
"It is a lie!"
Tavannes raised his eyebrows. "You are in my power," he said. "For the
rest, if it be a lie, Mademoiselle has but to say so."
"You hear him?" Tignonville cried. "Then speak, Mademoiselle! Clotilde,
speak! Say you never spoke, you never promised him!"
The young man's voice quivered with indignation, with rage, with pain;
but most, if the truth be told, with shame--the shame of a position
strange and unparalleled. For in proportion as the fear of death instant
and violent was lifted from him, reflection awoke, and the situation in
which he stood took uglier shape. It was not so much love that cried to
her, love that suffered, anguished by the prospect of love lost; as in
the highest natures it might have been. Rather it was the man's pride
which suffered: the pride of a high spirit which found itself helpless
between the hammer and the anvil, in a position so false that hereafter
men might say of the unfortunate that he had bartered his mistress for
his life. He had not! But he had perforce to stand by; he had to be
passive under stress of circumstances, and by the sacrifice, if she
consummated it, he would in fact be saved.
There was the pinch. No wonder that he cried to her in a voice which
roused even the servants from their lethargy of fear.
"Say it!" he cried. "Say it, before it be too late. Say, you did not
promise!"
Slowly she turned her face to him. "I cannot," she whispered; "I cannot.
Go," she continued, a spasm distorting her features. "Go, Monsieur.
Leave me. It is over."
"What?" he exclaimed. "You promised him?"
She bowed her head.
"Then," the young man cried, in a transport of resentment, "I will be no
part of the price. See! There! And there!" He tore the white sleeve
wholly from his arm, and, rending it in twain, flung it on the floor and
trampled on it. "It shall never be said that I stood by and let you buy
my life! I go into the street and I take my chance." And he turned to
the door.
But Tavannes was before him. "No!" he said; "you will stay here, M. de
Tignonville!" And he set his back against the door.
The young man looked at him, his face convulsed with passion.
"I shall stay here?" he cried. "And why, Monsieur? What is it to you if
I choose to perish?"
"Only this," Tavannes retorted. "I am answerable to Mademoiselle now, in
an hour I shall be answerable to my wife--for your life. Live, then,
Monsieur; you have no choice. In a month you will thank me--and her."