"Coward! Coward! Coward!"
The words rang out, clear, strident, passionate, in a crescendo ofagonised humiliation.
The boy, quivering with rage, had sprung to his feet, and, losing hisbalance, he fell forward clutching at the table, whilst with aconvulsive movement of the lids, he tried in vain to suppress thetears of shame which were blinding him.
"Coward!" He tried to shout the insult so that all might hear, buthis parched throat refused him service, his trembling hand sought thescattered cards upon the table, he collected them together, quickly,nervously, fingering them with feverish energy, then he hurled them atthe man opposite, whilst with a final effort he still contrived tomutter: "Coward!"
The older men tried to interpose, but the young ones only laughed,quite prepared for the adventure which must inevitably ensue, the onlypossible ending to a quarrel such as this.
Conciliation or arbitration was out of the question. Déroulède shouldhave known better than to speak disrespectfully of Adèle de Montchéri,when the little Vicomte de Marny's infatuation for the notoriousbeauty had been the talk of Paris and Versailles these many monthspast.
Adèle was very lovely and a veritable tower of greed and egotism. TheMarnys were rich and the little Vicomte very young, and just now thebrightly-plumaged hawk was busy plucking the latest pigeon, newlyarrived from its ancestral cote.
The boy was still in the initial stage of his infatuation. To himAdèle was a parago