lately crowed so lustily now dumb? Look you, Monsieur le Marquis,
you are accounted here a reckless gamester. Will a wager induce
you to this undertaking?"

I leapt to my feet at that. His derision cut me like a whip. If
what I did was the act of a braggart, yet it almost seems I could
do no less to bolster up my former boasting - or what into boasting
they had translated.

"You'll lay a wager, will you, Chatellerault?" I cried, giving him
back defiance for defiance. A breathless silence fell. "Then have
it so. Listen, gentlemen, that you may be witnesses. I do here
pledge my castle of Bardelys, and my estates in Picardy, with every
stick and stone and blade of grass that stands upon them, that I
shall woo and win Roxalanne de Lavedan to be the Marquise of
Bardelys. Does the stake satisfy you, Monsieur le Comte? You may
set all you have against it," I added coarsely, "and yet, I swear,
the odds will be heavily in your favour."

I remember it was Mironsac who first found his tongue, and sought
even at that late hour to set restraint upon us and to bring
judgment to our aid.

"Messieurs, messieurs!" he besought us. "In Heaven's name, bethink
you what you do. Bardelys, your wager is a madness. Monsieur de
Chatellerault, you'll not accept it. You'll--"

"Be silent," I rebuked him, with some asperity. "What has Monsieur
de Chatellerault to say?"