"Oh! marquis!" cried Monsieur Antoine, rushing to him and bending his knee before him, "you never wronged me in any way. You were my best friend. You were like a father to me, and I insulted you mortally. I would have offered my bare breast to you if you would have run me through with your sword, and I would never have raised my hand against you. You did not choose to take my life, but you punished me much more cruelly by withdrawing your friendship from me. And now you offer me your forgiveness. I receive it on my knees, in presence of my friends and my enemies, since this humiliation is the only reparation I can offer you. You, Monsieur Cardonnet," he said, rising and eying the manufacturer from head to foot, "are at liberty to sneer at what you cannot understand; but I do not offer my bare breast and my arm without a weapon to everybody, as you will soon know." Monsieur Cardonnet also had risen, darting threatening glances at Monsieur Antoine. The marquis placed himself between them and said to Antoine: "Monsieur le comte, I do not know what has taken place between Monsieur Cardonnet and you; but you have offered me a reparation which I reject. I choose to believe that there was wrong on both sides, and I wish to see you not at my feet but in my arms; but since you consider that you owe me an act of submission which my age justifies, I require you, before I embrace you, to be reconciled to Monsieur Cardonnet, and to take the first step in that direction." "Impossible!" cried Antoine, convulsively pressing the marquis's arm, half in joy, half in anger. "Monsieur has just spoken to my daughter in a most insulting way." "No, that cannot be," said the marquis; "there has been a misunderstanding. I am acquainted with Monsieur Cardonnet's sentiments; his character is inconsistent with an act of cowardice. Monsieur Cardonnet, I am certain that you are as familiar with the point of honor as any nobleman; and you have just seen two noblemen, who had cruelly wounded each other, become reconciled before your eyes, without blushing for their mutual concessions. Be generous, and prove to us that it is not the name that makes nobility. I bring you words of peace and means of reconciliation. Permit me to put your hand in Monsieur de Châteaubrun's. Come; you won't refuse an old man on the verge of the grave. Mademoiselle Gilberte, come to my aid; say a word to your father." The phrase _means of reconciliation_ had echoed loudly in Monsieur Cardonnet's ear. His penetrating mind had already guessed a part of the truth. He thought that he would be obliged to yield, and that it would be better to carry off the honors of war than to undergo the necessity of capitulation.