"Why, it's the very crocodile who threw you the violets," shouted Dorris. "I thought I recognized him, and that plain and frumpish Bontemps girl!" If only the Boundrish had been effectually choked! Why had a weak and culpable sympathy comforted her with Eau de Cologne? The Cyrano was not to be shaken to death like a rat without showing fight; in the tussle that ensued his rich costume suffered considerably before the crocodile let him go; and what the one said and the other gasped and growled in reply, though not intelligible through the din of bands and crowds, was presumably of an uncomplimentary character. Finally, flinging the long-nosed masquer from him, M. Isidore, his crocodile head thrown back like a hood and helplessly wobbling behind him, drew the insulted domino's hand through his arm with an air of possession and protection, the rescued damsel clinging to him with evident confidence and gratitude, and the two men, unconscious in their passion of their absurd appearance, the crocodile pale and calm, the long-nose red with confusion and fury and haughtily apologetic, stood glaring fiercely at each other with question, accusation, and explanation. Presently the long-nose, as if at the crocodile's request, produced a small white square from the recesses of his sumptuous dress; the crocodile handed him a similar square in return; they bowed and separated. M. Isidore led Mlle. Bontemps away on his arm towards a blue glimpse of sea at the end of a side-street, and the Cyrano, removing his plumed cap, and with it his great nose, that had become very shaky in the course of the fray, disclosed to Ermengarde's astonished gaze the features of the young Englishman of Monte Carlo. It was but a moment before the nose was hastily replaced, and its owner turned back into the main street, where he stood talking to a Pierrot, immediately in front of the stand, behind a soldier keeping the road. "Thought you'd have known better than that," the Pierrot grumbled. "It wasn't playing the game." "I could have sworn it was the Countess," the Cyrano was heard to say dejectedly. "And after yesterday--well, I didn't feel bound to play the game with her. Besides, _she_ wouldn't have cared." "Let us go," said Ermengarde, suddenly sick of the fooling, and worried by the band's mad tune repeated over and over again; but, looking round for Agatha, she found her place empty, and Mr. Welbourne, who had returned to his seat, unable to give any account of her. Many thoughts were in Ermengarde's heart, while in response to the thin man's timely suggestion of tea at Rumpelmayer's, they slipped out of the press to the comparative quiet of the promenade by the sea, that glowed like a peacock's velvety throat on the horizon, with the near shallows of turquoise, and broke with a deep soft boom in snowy surf on the rocks.