This explosion of anger from Maurice Marie-Anne had been expecting and hoping for every moment.

She was even more inexperienced than her lover; but she was a woman, and could not fail to understand the meaning of the young marquis.

He was evidently “paying his court to her.”  And with what intentions!  It was only too easy to divine.

Her agitation, while the marquis spoke in a more and more tender voice, changed first to stupor, then to indignation, as she realized his marvellous audacity.

After that, how could she help blessing the violence which put an end to a situation which was so insulting for her, and so humiliating for Maurice?

An ordinary woman would have thrown herself between the two men who were ready to kill each other.  Marie-Anne did not move a muscle.

Was it not the duty of Maurice to protect her when she was insulted?  Who, then, if not he, should defend her from the insolent gallantry of this libertine?  She would have blushed, she who was energy personified, to love a weak and pusillanimous man.

But any intervention was unnecessary.  Maurice comprehended that this was one of those affronts which the person insulted must not seem to suspect, under penalty of giving the offending party the advantage.

He felt that Marie-Anne must not be regarded as the cause of the quarrel!

His instant recognition of the situation produced a powerful reaction in his mind; and he recovered, as if by magic, his coolness and the free exercise of his faculties.

“Yes,” he resumed, defiantly, “this is hypocrisy enough.  To dare to prate of reparation after the insults that you and yours have inflicted, is adding intentional humiliation to insult—­and I will not permit it.”

Martial had thrown aside his gun; he now rose and brushed the knee of his pantaloons, to which a few particles of dust had adhered, with a phlegm whose secret he had learned in England.

He was too discerning not to perceive that Maurice had disguised the true cause of his outburst of passion; but what did it matter to him?  Had he avowed it, the marquis would not have been displeased.

Yet it was necessary to make some response, and to preserve the superiority which he imagined he had maintained up to that time.

“You will never know, Monsieur,” he said, glancing alternately at his gun and at Marie-Anne, “all that you owe to Mademoiselle Lacheneur.  We shall meet again, I hope—­”

“You have made that remark before,” Maurice interrupted, tauntingly.  “Nothing is easier than to find me.  The first peasant you meet will point out the house of Baron d’Escorval.”

“Eh bien! sir, I cannot promise that you will not see two of my friends.”

“Oh! whenever it may please you!”

“Certainly; but it would gratify me to know by what right you make yourself the judge of Monsieur Lacheneur’s honor, and take it upon yourself to defend what has not been attacked.  Who has given you this right?”