"I thought, monsieur," said he, with a great dignity, "I thought
when I invited you to sit at my table that your business was to
serve me, however little I might be conscious of having merited
the honour. It seems instead that you are come hither to affront
me. You are my guest, monsieur. Let me beg that you will depart
before I resent a question on a matter which concerns myself alone."

The man was right, and Garnache was wrong. He had no title to take
up the affairs of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. But he was past
reason now, and he was not the man to brook haughtiness, however
courteously it might be cloaked. He eyed the Marquis's flushed
ace across the board, and his lip curled.

"Monsieur," said he, "I take your meaning very fully. Half a word
with me is as good as a whole sentence with another. You have
dubbed me in polite phrases an impertinent. That I am not; and I
resent the imputation."

"Oh, that!" said the Marquis, with a half-laugh and a shrug. "If
you resent it - " His smile and his gesture made the rest plain.

"Exactly, monsieur," was Garnache's answer. "But I do not fight
sick men."

Florimond's brows grew wrinkled, his eyes puzzled.

"Sick men!" he echoed. "Awhile ago, monsieur, you appeared to
cast a doubt upon my sanity. Is it a case of the drunkard who
thinks all the world drunk but himself?"