The Chevalier de Vidalinc sat in a low chair beside his friend, and gave him from time to time a spoonful of the tonic prescribed by the surgeon, but refrained from breaking the silence into which he had fallen.
Vallombreuse lay perfectly still for a while; but it was easy to see, in spite of his affected calmness, that his blood was boiling with suppressed rage.

At last he could restrain himself no longer, and burst out violently: "Oh! Vidalinc, this is too outrageously aggravating! to think that that contemptible, lean stork, who has flown forth from his ruined chateau so as not to die of starvation in it, should have dared to stick his long bill into me! I have encountered, and conquered, the best swordsmen in France, and never returned from the field before with so much as a scratch, or without leaving my adversary stretched lifeless on the ground, or wounded and bleeding in the arms of his friends." "But you must remember that the most favoured and the bravest of mortals have their unlucky days, Vallombreuse," answered the chevalier sententiously, "and Dame Fortune does not ALWAYS smile, even upon her prime favourites.

Until now you have never had to complain of her frowns, for you have been her pampered darling all your life long." "Isn't it too disgraceful," continued Vallombreuse, growing more and more heated, "that this ridiculous buffoon--this grotesque country clown--who takes such abominable drubbings on the stage, and has never in his life known what it was to associate with gentlemen, should have managed to get the best of the Duke of Vallombreuse, hitherto by common accord pronounced invincible?
He must be a professional prize-fighter, disguised as a strolling mountebank." "There can be no doubt about his real rank," said Vidalinc, "for the Marquis de Bruyeres guarantees it; but I must confess that his unequalled performance to-day filled me with astonishment; it was simply marvellous.

Neither Girolamo nor Paraguante, those two world-renowned swordsmen, could have surpassed it.

I watched him closely, and I tell you that even they could not have withstood him.