He is too
shy to show himself - oh, a very modest gentleman. But there he is
behind the curtains. Will you not show yourself to your friends,
M. de La Tour d'Azyr, Monsieur le Marquis who considers eloquence
so very dangerous a gift? See, they would like a word with you;
they do not believe me when I tell them that you are here."
Now, whatever he may have been, and whatever the views held on the
subject by Andre-Louis, M. de La Tour d'Azyr was certainly not a
coward. To say that he was hiding in Nantes was not true. He came
and went there openly and unabashed. It happened, however, that the
Nantais were ignorant until this moment of his presence among them.
But then he would have disdained to have informed them of it just as
he would have disdained to have concealed it from them.
Challenged thus, however, and despite the ominous manner in which
the bourgeois element in the audience had responded to Scaramouche's
appeal to its passions, despite the attempts made by Chabrillane to
restrain him, the Marquis swept aside the curtain at the side of the
box, and suddenly showed himself, pale but self-contained and
scornful as he surveyed first the daring Scaramouche and then those
others who at sight of him had given tongue to their hostility.
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