The thin soup was hot, at any rate, the stewed meat passable. The cousins were half-way through the latter before the man at the end of the table pushed away his empty plate. “Pas mal, la mère,” he remarked. “A trifle overdone, perhaps. But it is something to get meat at all. Some never taste it from week’s end to week’s end. That’s true, isn’t it, citizen?” he added, leaning forward and pointedly addressing his query to the Marquis, who sat opposite at the other end of the little table. “Perfectly,” responded Gilbert without enthusiasm. “But you’ve never had to go without it, eh? You’ve never known a day when you haven’t eaten good, satisfying meat? Come now, confess it!” And he cackled with a rather unpleasant laughter. The Marquis was taken aback, and he was also angry at the impertinence. He was about to reply in no very conciliatory spirit when Louis suddenly struck in. “Do you think that we seem too fat and well-liking, citizen?” he asked gaily. “Our looks belie us if you do. For my part, it’s a long day since I have tasted meat like this.” Which was true. “Come from far?” asked the other, producing the toothpick again. “Far enough to be tired,” replied the Vicomte casually. “From Mamers, if it interests you to know.” “Tired!” exclaimed the questioner with a sneer. “Gentry like you didn’t walk all the way from Mamers, I’ll wager.” His tone was extremely offensive. From where he sat Louis could see the table in the middle of the room, and was aware that the two men sitting at it had stopped their card-playing to listen. “Quite true,” he said, as he helped himself to wine. “Two charming _citoyennes_ were so kind as to give us a lift in their cart part of the way.” “And shall you stop here to-night?” “No,” said Gilbert curtly, tired of the insolent and significant interrogatory. “Beds not good enough for you, I suppose,” riposted their fellow-guest. Château-Foix took no notice, but saying to Louis in a low voice, “We had best begone as soon as we can,” he finished his plateful of meat in silence, and the Vicomte followed his example. At the end Gilbert knocked on the table with the handle of his knife to summon the landlady. “The reckoning, if you please,” he called out. As if the word had been a preconcerted signal the little man at the other end of the table sprang to his feet. “There is another reckoning to be settled first!” he screamed. “You shall pay it before you leave this place. Citizens, I appeal to you to do your duty! These men are _ci-devants_—they are aristocrats from Paris—escaping, most probably, from the just doom the nation imposes on them—aristocrats who have ground us down for a thousand years, and boast even now of seducing our wives and daughters. . . .”