have murdered him!"

Now, as may be well conceived, I was in no mood to endure such words from
any man, so was but natural that for answer I caught the dainty Vicomte a
buffet that knocked him into the arms of the nearest bystander, and brought
him to his senses.

"Fool," I snarled at him, "must I make another example before you believe
that Gaston de Luynes wears a sword?"

"In the name of Heaven--" he began, putting forth his hands in a beseeching
gesture; but what more he said was drowned by the roar of anger that burst
from the onlookers, and it was like to have gone ill with me had not St.
Auban come to my aid at that most critical juncture.

"Messieurs!" he cried, thrusting himself before me, and raising his hand to
crave silence, "hear me. I, a friend of M. de Canaples, tell you that you
wrong M. de Luynes. 'T was a fair fight--how the quarrel arose is no
concern of yours."

Despite his words they still snarled and growled like the misbegotten curs
they were. But St. Auban was famous for the regal supper parties he gave,
to which all were eager to be bidden, and amidst that crowd, as I have
said, there were a score or so of gentlemen of the Court, who--with scant
regard for the right or wrong of the case and every regard to conciliate
this giver of suppers--came to range themselves beside and around us, and
thus protected me from the murderous designs of that rabble.

Seeing how the gentlemen took my part, and deeming--in their blessed
ignorance--that what gentlemen did must be perforce well done, they grew