He stepped forward.
"Valerie," he said, "it is not fitting you should remain." "Aye, take her hence," the Dowager bade him, with a smile.

"Her presence is unmanning our fine Parisian." Eager to do so, over-eager, Marius came forward, past his men-at-arms, until he was but some three paces from the girl and just out of reach of a sudden dart of Garnache's sword.
Softly, very warily, Garnache slipped his right foot a little farther to the right.

Suddenly he threw his weight upon it, so that he was clear of the girl.

Before they understood what he was about, the thing had taken place.

He had leaped forward, caught the young man by the breast of his shimmering doublet, leaped back to shelter beyond mademoiselle, hurled Marius to the ground, and planted his foot, shod as it was in his thickly mudded riding-boot, full upon the boy's long, shapely neck.
"Move so much as a finger, my pretty fellow," he snapped at him, "and I'll crush the life from you as from a toad." There was a sudden forward movement on the part of the men; but if Garnache was vicious, he was calm.