"And I dismissed Madame Racine," answered the man with a sneer.

"You are training for the horsewhip. You forget that, as Seigneur,
I have power to give you summary punishment."

"You haven't power to do anything at all, M'sieu'!" The Seigneur
started. He thought the remark had reference to his physical disability.
His fingers itched to take the creature by the throat, and choke the
tongue from his mouth. Before he could speak, the man continued with a
half-drunken grimace:

"You, with your tributes, and your courts, and your body-guards! Bah!
You'd have a gibbet if you could, wouldn't you? You with your rebellion
and your tinpot honours! A puling baby could conspire as well as you.
And all the world laughing at you--v'la!"

"Get out of this room and take your feet from my Manor, Tardif," said the
Seigneur with a deadly quietness, "or it will be the worse for you."

"Your Manor--pish!" The man laughed a hateful laugh. "Your Manor? You
haven't any Manor. You haven't anything but what you carry on your
back."

A flush passed swiftly over the Seigneur's face, then left it cold and
white, and the eyes shone fiery in his head. He felt some shameful
meaning in the man's words, beyond this gross reference to his deformity.

"I am Seigneur of this Manor, and you have taken wages from me, and eaten
my bread, slept under my roof, and--"