Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/382

 "Exactly what I was about to do, monsieur. I have brought you here by force, for one reason because I well knew that you would not come of your own free will. For another, I wish to negotiate with you. I admit that you have a claim upon madame's hand—a claim which, perhaps, she might feel called upon to acknowledge, to be just, howsoever much such a course might prove distasteful to her. So—Monsieur the Colonel O'Rourke, what will buy you off?"

O'Rourke drew himself up, and his hands clenched. For a moment he seemed about to spring at the duke's throat. Captain de Brissac started forward, and even the duke betrayed signs of uneasiness. But O'Rourke contained himself.

"Did ye bring me here to insult me, ye scum o' the earth?" he demanded tensely. "Faith, if it's to fight ye wish, I'll accommodate ye. I could not insult you by branding ye a liar to your face, but, monsieur the duke, ye have managed mortally to affront me! Did ye mean it, dog?" The duke's face was quite livid with rage. But his voice was steady and even as he replied:

"It is not to fight that I wish, Colonel O'Rourke. I am quite well aware that nothing could please you better than to murder me, by foul means, as you did my brother. I understand you have your fellow, Chambret, in the town below here, and I've no doubt the two of you could put a period to the Grandlieu line, between you. No, Colonel O'Rourke. I have asked you in all earnestness, and I ask you again, knowing as I do that you adventurers all have your price: For what will you consent to relinquish your claim upon madame's hand?"

De Brissac's hand moved toward his revolver, whose butt