How was she to know that it was just the sincerity of his passion made him clumsy?
For like many another, normally glib, self-assured, and graceful, Marius grew halting, shy, and clumsy only where he loved.
But in the despair that took him now the quality of his passion seemed to change.

Partly it was the wine, partly the sight of this other lover--of whom there must be an end--whose very glance seemed to him an insult to his mother.

His imagination had taken fire that night, and it had ripened him for any villainy.

The Seneschal and the wine, between them, had opened the floodgates of all that was evil in his nature, and that evil thundered out in a great torrent that bid fair to sweep all before it.
And suddenly, unexpectedly for the others, who were by now resigned to his moody silence, the evil found expression.

The Marquise had spoken of something--something of slight importance--that must be done before Florimond returned.