Blaise, deprived by his false position of the power of speech, stood
with frowning brow and puffed-out cheeks, nervously clutching at his
sword-hilt. The lady and her maid looked at him with curiosity, as if
a gentleman who would stand idly and speechlessly by, while his
servant resented an insult to a lady, was a strange being, to be
viewed with wonder.
"Mademoiselle," said I, laying my sword on a table, "heaven is kind to me
in having led me where I might have the joy of serving you."
The lady, whose musical voice had the sound of sadness in it, answered
with the graciousness warranted by the occasion:
"My good man, your sword lifts you above your degree, even," and here she
glanced at Blaise, and continued in a tone of irrepressible contempt, "as
the tameness of some gentlemen lowers them beneath theirs."
Blaise, from whose nature tameness was the attribute farthest removed,
looked first at the lady, in helpless bewilderment, then at me, with mute
reproach for having placed him in his ridiculous position, and lastly at
the maid, who regarded him with open derision. To be laughed at by this
piquant creature, to whose charms he had been so speedily susceptible,
was the crowning misery. His expression of woe was such that I could not
easily retain my own serious and respectful countenance.
Having to make some answer to the lady, I said:
"An opportunity to defend so fair a lady would elevate the most ignoble.
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