At last he could restrain himself no longer, and burst
out violently: "Oh! Vidalinc, this is too outrageously aggravating! to
think that that contemptible, lean stork, who has flown forth from his
ruined chateau so as not to die of starvation in it, should have dared
to stick his long bill into me! I have encountered, and conquered, the
best swordsmen in France, and never returned from the field before with
so much as a scratch, or without leaving my adversary stretched lifeless
on the ground, or wounded and bleeding in the arms of his friends."
"But you must remember that the most favoured and the bravest of
mortals have their unlucky days, Vallombreuse," answered the chevalier
sententiously, "and Dame Fortune does not ALWAYS smile, even upon
her prime favourites. Until now you have never had to complain of her
frowns, for you have been her pampered darling all your life long."
"Isn't it too disgraceful," continued Vallombreuse, growing more and
more heated, "that this ridiculous buffoon--this grotesque country
clown--who takes such abominable drubbings on the stage, and has never
in his life known what it was to associate with gentlemen, should have
managed to get the best of the Duke of Vallombreuse, hitherto by common
accord pronounced invincible? He must be a professional prize-fighter,
disguised as a strolling mountebank.
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