“On what?”

“There are eight candles on your side of the table, eight on mine.  I will undertake to snuff mine in less time than it takes you to snuff yours.  Say fifty pistoles to make it interesting.”

“Done!” said the vicomte.

Perhaps Victor was the soberest man among them, next to the vicomte, who had jestingly been accused of having hollow bones, so marvelous was his capacity for wine and the art of concealing the effects.  Several times the poet had crossed the vicomte’s glance as it was leveled in the Chevalier’s direction.  Each time the vicomte’s lips had been twisted into a half smile which was not unmixed with pitying contempt.  Somehow the poet did not wholly trust the vicomte.  Genius has strange instincts.  While Victor admired the vicomte’s wit, his courage, his recklessness, there was a depth to this man which did not challenge investigation, but rather repelled it.  What did that half smile signify?  Victor shrugged.  Perhaps it was all his imagination.  Perhaps it was because he had seen the vicomte look at Madame de Brissac . . . as he himself had often looked.  Ah well, love is a thing over which neither man nor woman has control; and perhaps his half-defined antagonism was based upon jealousy.  There was some satisfaction to know that the vicomte’s head was in no less danger than his own.  He brushed aside these thoughts, and centered his interest in the game which was about to begin.

The vicomte drew his sword, and accepted that of Lieutenant de Vandreuil of the fort, while the Chevalier joined to his own the rapier of his poet-friend.  Both the vicomte and the Chevalier held enviable reputations as fancy swordsmen.  To snuff a candle with a pair of swords held scissorwise is a feat to be accomplished only by an expert.  Interest in the sport was always high; and to-night individual wagers as to the outcome sprang up around the table.  “Saumaise,” said the vicomte, “will you hold the watch?”

“With pleasure, Vicomte,” accepting the vicomte’s handsome time-piece.  “Messieurs, it is now twenty-nine minutes after ten; promptly at thirty I shall give the word, preceding it with a one-two-three.  Are you ready?”

The contestants nodded.  Several seconds passed, in absolute silence.

“One-two-three—­go!”

The Chevalier succeeded in snuffing his candles three seconds sooner than the vicomte.  The applause was loud.  Breton was directed to go to the cellars and fetch a dozen bottles of white chambertin.

“You would have won, Vicomte,” said the Chevalier, “but for a floating wick.”

“Your courtesy exceeds everything,” returned the vicomte, bowing with drunken exaggeration.

The doors slid back, and Jehan appeared on the threshold.

“Monsieur le Comte,” he said, “Monsieur le Marquis, your father, desires to speak to you.”  Jehan viewed the scene phlegmatically,

“What!” The Chevalier set down his glass.  His companions did likewise.  “You are jesting, Jehan.”