His father glared at him. "You?" he exclaimed. And then ungraciously, "Say on!" he growled. "We have cut half the grass in the long meadow," the lad answered. "And to-morrow we ought to be both cutting and making, while it is fine. Last year, as we were short-handed, the women helped. If you were to order all but Solomon to the hay-field to-morrow--it is the farthest from here, beside the river--there would be no one to talk or tell, sir." Des Ageaux struck his leg in approbation. "The lad has it!" he said. "With your permission, M. le Vicomte, what could be better?" "Better?" the Vicomte retorted, throwing himself back in his chair. "What? I am to open my gate with my own hands?" "Solomon would open. And he can be trusted." "Receive my daughter without man or maid?" the Vicomte cried. "Show myself to strangers without my people? Appear like one of the base-born beggarly ploughmen with mud in their veins, with whom you love to mix? What mean you, sirrah, by such a suggestion? Shame on you, unnatural fool!" "But, M. le Vicomte," the Lieutenant remonstrated, "if you will not do that----" "Never! Never!" "Then," des Ageaux answered, more stiffly, "it remains only to pull up the drawbridge. Since, I presume," he continued, his tone taking insensibly a note of disdain, "you do not propose to give up the young lady, or to turn her from your door." "Turn her from my door?" "That being at once to help M. de Vlaye to this marriage, and to drag the name of Villeneuve in the mud! But"--breaking off with a bow--"I am sure that the honour of the family is safe in your hands, M. le Vicomte." "It is well you said that!" the Vicomte cried, his face purple, his hands palsied with rage. "It is well you broke off, sir, or I would have proved to you that my honour is safe with me. Body of Satan, am I to be preached to by everybody--every brainless lad," he continued, prudently diverting his tirade to the head of the unlucky Roger, "who chooses to prate before his elders! _Mon Dieu!_ There was a time when children sat mute instead of preaching. But that was before Coutras!"--bitterly--"when most things came to an end."