They suggested that where I have failed you could succeed, if you
had a mind to try. I have challenged you, Bardelys. I challenge
you again. Go about this wooing as you will; dazzle the lady with
your wealth and your magnificence, with your servants, your horses,
your equipages; and all the splendours you can command; yet I make
bold to say that not a year of your scented attentions and most
insidious wiles will bear you fruit. Are you sufficiently
challenged?"

"But this is rank frenzy!" I protested. "Why should I undertake
this thing?"

"To prove me wrong," he taunted me. "To prove me clumsy. Come,
Bardelys, what of your spirit?"

"I confess I would do much to afford you the proof you ask. But to
take a wife! Pardi! That is much indeed!"

"Bah!" he sneered. "You do well to draw back You are wise to
avoid discomfiture. This lady is not for you. When she is won,
it will be by some bold and gallant gentleman, and by no mincing
squire of dames, no courtly coxcomb, no fop of the Luxembourg, be
his experiences of dalliance never so vast."

"Po' Cap de Dieu!" growled Cazalet, who was a Gascon captain in
the Guards, and who swore strange, southern oaths. "Up, Bardelys!
Afoot! Prove your boldness and your gallantry, or be forever
shamed; a squire of dames, a courtly coxcomb, a fop of the
Luxembourg! Mordemondieu! I have given a man a bellyful of steel
for the half of those titles!"