Have done with counter-questions." Marius was skilled with the foils, as Fortunio said, but he cared not for unbaited steel, and he was conscious of it, so that the captain's half-sneer had touched him on the raw.

But he was foolish to take that tone in answer.

There was a truculent, Southern pride in the ruffler which sprang immediately into life and which naught that they could say thereafter would stamp out.
"Must I say again that you mistake your man ?" was his retort, and as he spoke he rose, as though to signify that the subject wearied him and that his remaining to pursue it must be idle.

"I am not of those to whom you can say: `I need such an one killed, name me the price at which you'll be his butcher."' The Marquise wrung her hands in pretty mimicry of despair, and poured out soothing words, as one might pour oil upon stormy waters.

The Seneschal sat in stolid silence, a half-scared spectator of this odd scene, what time the Marquise talked and talked until she had brought Fortunio back to some measure of subjection.
Such reasoning as she made use of she climaxed by an offer of no less a sum than a hundred pistoles.