“Que faites-vous?” ("What are you doing?”)

It was the tutor, who had been pacing up and down the terrace with a book, and who now stood holding the book in his right hand, and our hero in his left.

Monsieur the Viscount’s tutor was a remarkable man.  If he had not been so, he would hardly have been tolerated at the chateau, since he was not particularly beautiful, and not especially refined.  He was in holy orders, as his tonsured head and clerical costume bore witness—­a costume which, from its tightness and simplicity, only served to exaggerate the unusual proportions of his person.  Monsieur the Preceptor had English blood in his veins, and his northern origin betrayed itself in his towering height and corresponding breadth, as well as by his fair hair and light blue eyes.  But the most remarkable parts of his outward man were his hands, which were of immense size, especially about the thumbs.  Monsieur the Preceptor was not exactly in keeping with his present abode.  It was not only that he was wanting in the grace and beauty that reigned around him, but that his presence made those very graces and beauties to look small.  He seemed to have a gift the reverse of that bestowed upon King Midas—­the gold on which his heavy hand was laid seemed to become rubbish.  In the presence of the late Viscount, and in that of Madame his widow, you would have felt fully the deep importance of your dress being a la mode, and your complexion a la strawberries and cream (such influences still exist); but let the burly tutor appear upon the scene, and all the magic died at once out of brocaded silks and pearl-coloured stockings, and dress and complexion became subjects almost of insignificance.  Monsieur the Preceptor was certainly a singular man to have been chosen as an inmate of such a household; but, though young, he had unusual talents, and added to them the not more usual accompaniments of modesty and trustworthiness.  To crown all, he was rigidly pious in times when piety was not fashionable, and an obedient son of the church of which he was a minister.  Moreover, a family that fashion does not permit to be demonstratively religious, may gain a reflected credit from an austere chaplain; and so Monsieur the Preceptor remained in the chateau and went his own way.  It was this man who now laid hands on the Viscount, and, in a voice that sounded like amiable thunder, made the inquiry, “Que faites-vous?”

“I am going to kill this animal—­this hideous horrible animal,” said Monsieur the Viscount, struggling vainly under the grasp of the tutors finger and thumb.

“It is only a toad,” said Monsieur the Preceptor, in his laconic tones.

“Only a toad, do you say, Monsieur?” said the Viscount.  “That is enough, I think.  It will bite—­it will spit—­it will poison:  it is like that dragon you tell me of, that devastated Rhodes—­I am the good knight that shall kill it.”