M. le Marquis shifted in his chair, and spoke at last.

“You have, monsieur,” said he, “a very dangerous gift of eloquence.  And it is of yourself rather than of your subject.  For after all, what do you offer me?  A rechauffe of the dishes served to out-at-elbow enthusiasts in the provincial literary chambers, compounded of the effusions of your Voltaires and Jean-Jacques and such dirty-fingered scribblers.  You have not among all your philosophers one with the wit to understand that we are an order consecrated by antiquity, that for our rights and privileges we have behind us the authority of centuries.”

“Humanity, monsieur,” Philippe replied, “is more ancient than nobility.  Human rights are contemporary with man.”

The Marquis laughed and shrugged.

“That is the answer I might have expected.  It has the right note of cant that distinguishes the philosophers.”  And then M. de Chabrillane spoke.

“You go a long way round,” he criticized his cousin, on a note of impatience.

“But I am getting there,” he was answered.  “I desired to make quite certain first.”

“Faith, you should have no doubt by now.”

“I have none.”  The Marquis rose, and turned again to M. de Vilmorin, who had understood nothing of that brief exchange.  “M. l’abbe,” said he once more, “you have a very dangerous gift of eloquence.  I can conceive of men being swayed by it.  Had you been born a gentleman, you would not so easily have acquired these false views that you express.”

M. de Vilmorin stared blankly, uncomprehending.

“Had I been born a gentleman, do you say?” quoth he, in a slow, bewildered voice.  “But I was born a gentleman.  My race is as old, my blood as good as yours, monsieur.”

From M. le Marquis there was a slight play of eyebrows, a vague, indulgent smile.  His dark, liquid eyes looked squarely into the face of M. de Vilmorin.

“You have been deceived in that, I fear.”

“Deceived?”

“Your sentiments betray the indiscretion of which madame your mother must have been guilty.”

The brutally affronting words were sped beyond recall, and the lips that had uttered them, coldly, as if they had been the merest commonplace, remained calm and faintly sneering.

A dead silence followed.  Andre-Louis’ wits were numbed.  He stood aghast, all thought suspended in him, what time M. de Vilmorin’s eyes continued fixed upon M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s, as if searching there for a meaning that eluded him.  Quite suddenly he understood the vile affront.  The blood leapt to his face, fire blazed in his gentle eyes.  A convulsive quiver shook him.  Then, with an inarticulate cry, he leaned forward, and with his open hand struck M. le Marquis full and hard upon his sneering face.

In a flash M. de Chabrillane was on his feet, between the two men.

Too late Andre-Louis had seen the trap.  La Tour d’Azyr’s words were but as a move in a game of chess, calculated to exasperate his opponent into some such counter-move as this — a counter-move that left him entirely at the other’s mercy.