To the seconds none of these details had been visible. All that they had seen had been a swift whirl of flashing blades, and then André-Louis stretched almost to the ground in an upward lunge that had pierced the Marquis’ right arm just below the shoulder.
The sword fell from the suddenly relaxed grip of La Tour d’Azyr’s fingers, which had been rendered powerless, and he stood now disarmed, his lip in his teeth, his face white, his chest heaving, before his opponent, who had at once recovered. With the blood-tinged tip of his sword resting on the ground, André-Louis surveyed him grimly, as we survey the prey that through our own clumsiness has escaped us at the last moment.
In the Assembly and in the newspapers this might be hailed as another victory for the Paladin of the Third Estate; only himself could know the extent and the bitternest of the failure.
M. d’Ormesson had sprung to the side of his principal.
“You are hurt!” he had cried stupidly.
“It is nothing,” said La Tour d’Azyr. “A scratch.” But his lip writhed, and the torn sleeve of his fine cambric shirt was full of blood.
D’Ormesson, a practical man in such matters, produced a linen kerchief, which he tore quickly into strips to improvise a bandage.
Still André-Louis continued to stand there, looking on as if bemused. He continued so until Le Chapelier touched him on the arm. Then at last he roused himself, sighed, and turned away to resume his garments, nor did he address or look again at his late opponent, but left the ground at once.
As, with Le Chapelier, he was walking slowly and in silent dejection towards the entrance of the Bois, where they had left their carriage, they were passed by the caleche conveying La Tour d’Azyr and his second—which had originally driven almost right up to the spot of the encounter. The Marquis’ wounded arm was carried in a sling improvised from his companion’s sword-belt. His sky-blue coat with three collars had been buttoned over this, so that the right sleeve hung empty. Otherwise, saving a certain pallor, he looked much his usual self.
And now you understand how it was that he was the first to return, and that seeing him thus returning, apparently safe and sound, the two ladies, intent upon preventing the encounter, should have assumed that their worst fears were realized.
Mme. de Plougastel attempted to call out, but her voice refused its office. She attempted to throw open the door of her own carriage; but her fingers fumbled clumsily and ineffectively with the handle. And meanwhile the caleche was slowly passing, La Tour d’Azyr’s fine eyes sombrely yet intently meeting her own anguished gaze. And then she saw something else. M. d’Ormesson, leaning back again from the forward inclination of his body to join his own to his companion’s salutation of the Countess, disclosed the empty right sleeve of M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s blue coat. More, the near side of the coat itself turned back from the point near the throat where it was caught together by a single button, revealed the slung arm beneath in its blood-sodden cambric sleeve.
Even now she feared to jump to the obvious conclusion—feared lest perhaps the Marquis, though himself wounded, might have dealt his adversary a deadlier wound.
She found her voice at last, and at the same moment signalled to the driver of the caleche to stop.
As it was pulled to a standstill, M. d’Ormesson alighted, and so met madame in the little space between the two carriages.
“Where is M. Moreau?” was the question with which she surprised him.
“Following at his leisure, no doubt, madame,” he answered, recovering.
“He is not hurt?”
“Unfortunately it is we who …” M. d’Ormesson was beginning, when from behind him M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s voice cut in crisply:
“This interest on your part in M. Moreau, dear Countess …”
He broke off, observing a vague challenge in the air with which she confronted him. But indeed his sentence did not need completing.
There was a vaguely awkward pause. And then she looked at M. d’Ormesson. Her manner changed. She offered what appeared to be an explanation of her concern for M. Moreau.
“Mademoiselle de Kercadiou is with me. The poor child has fainted.”
There was more, a deal more, she would have said just then, but for M. d’Ormesson’s presence.
Moved by a deep solicitude for Mademoiselle de Kercadiou, de La Tour d’Azyr sprang up despite his wound.
“I am in poor case to render assistance, madame,” he said, an apologetic smile on his pale face. “But …”
With the aid of d’Ormesson, and in spite of the latter’s protestations, he got down from the caleche, which then moved on a little way, so as to leave the road clear—for another carriage that was approaching from the direction of the Bois.
And thus it happened that when a few moments later that approaching cabriolet overtook and passed the halted vehicles, André-Louis beheld a very touching scene. Standing up to obtain a better view, he saw Aline in a half-swooning condition—she was beginning to revive by now—seated in the doorway of the carriage, supported by Mme. de Plougastel. In an attitude of deepest concern, M. de La Tour d’Azyr, his wound notwithstanding, was bending over the girl, whilst behind him stood M. d’Ormesson
