The unconscious author of all this tumult meanwhile had left the window. The rivals were _tête-à-tête_ upon the stage of their recent contest. Jacque stood with his hand in his breast, eyeing Gabriel with a sullen sneer. _He_ held the precious rose in his hand, and still gazed at the vacant window. "And so your aunt loves a white rose better than a slice of bread?" ejaculated Jacque. "Heaven! what a lie--ha, ha, ha!" "Well, I won the game and I won the rose," said Gabriel, tranquilly. "I can't wonder you are a little vexed." "Vexed?--bah! I thought she would have offered you a piece of money," retorted Jacque; "and if she _had_, I venture to say we should have heard very little about that nice old aunt with the _penchant_ for white roses." "I'm not sordid, Jacque," retorted his rival; "and I did not want to put Mademoiselle to any trouble." "How she laughed at you, Gabriel, your clumsiness and your ridiculous grimaces; but then you do make--ha, ha, ha!--such very comical faces while the bowls are rolling, I could not blame her." "She laughed more at you than at me," retorted Gabriel, evidently nettled. "_You_ talk of clumsiness and grimaces--upon my faith, a pretty notion." "Tut, man, you must have been deaf. You amused her so with your writhing, and ogling, and grinning, and sticking your tongue first in this cheek and then in that, according as the bowl rolled to one side or the other, that she laughed till the very tears came; and after all that, forsooth, she wanted to feed you like a pig on rotten pears; and then--ha, ha, ha!--the airs, the command, the magnificence. Ah, la! it was enough to make a cow laugh." "You are spited and jealous; but don't dare to speak disrespectfully of Mademoiselle in my presence, sirrah," said Gabriel, fiercely. "Sirrah me no sirrahs," cried Jacque giving way at last to an irrepressible explosion of rage and jealousy. "I'll say what I think, and call things by their names. You're an ass, I tell you--an ass; and as for her, she's a saucy, impertinent little minx, and you and she, and your precious white rose, may go in a bunch to the devil together."