"Good God, man!" here interposed Laurent sharply, "is this bland simplicity of yours a pose or what? Do you really pretend not to know that a workman's attire is not a suitable one wherein to present yourself in the salons of the Marquise de Mortain?" "The Marquise de Mortain was once Mme. de Maurel. I did not come here in order to present myself in her salon, but to speak with my mother and at her wish." "You might have washed your hands and slipped on a decent coat in order to do that," rejoined Laurent, who, forgetting his mother's entreaties of a while ago, was letting his ebullient temper gradually overmaster his prudence. But de Maurel, too, seemed to have come to the end of his small stock of patience. "Have done, boy, with that nonsense," he retorted roughly, "I am not a man of patience. I owe nothing to the lady, remember, who has long since forfeited the name of 'mother' as far as I am concerned. I came at her bidding, and against my better judgment--the son of my father can have nothing in common with the Marquise de Mortain." "An you turn to insult ..." exclaimed Laurent hotly. "There is no insult in an unvarnished fact. Mme. la Marquise de Mortain cares less about me than I do about an ill-conditioned cur. And if she desires to see my clothes, I can send her a suit fashioned by a tailor and stay at home myself the while." "_Pardieu_, de Maurel," quoth M. de Courson with a laugh, "I had heard tales of your tenacity and of your self-will, but none of a certainty that do justice to the truth. Come, man! you surely will not allow petty obstinacy in so trifling a matter to interfere with the amity which should exist between your mother and yourself and towards which she hath, you must admit, met you already more than half way." "But, _nom de Dieu_!" rejoined de Maurel gruffly, "what do want me to do _enfin_?" "Let me take a message to Mme. la Marquise from you," replied M. le Comte, "craving her pardon for your want of respect to her this forenoon.... There is no shame in humbling one's pride before a woman and...." Then, as de Maurel, moody and wrathful, made no immediate rejoinder to the proposal, M. de Courson added more lightly: "Well, what say you?" "That I've neither mind nor leisure to lend myself to Mme. la Marquise's whims and fancies," retorted de Maurel, whose obstinacy was growing in proportion with the impatience and arrogance of his kinsmen. "Nor decent clothes to wear, I warrant," broke in Laurent, as he felt his temper flaring up into fury against this ill-bred creature, who seemed wholly unconscious of his enormities. "Uncle Baudouin," he added, with a sneer, "do not, I pray you, waste your time in trying to instil some semblance of good manners into this oaf. One would think he had sprung out of the gutter...."