第26章

THE QUARREL

In the main salon I perceived sitting at a small table a short, squat gentleman of the professional type.He had a red moustache, and was engaged in eating something or another, while by his side sat a tall, clean-shaven individual with whom he was carrying on a conversation in French.Somehow the aspect of these two persons displeased me; yet I decided, for all that, to light my cigarette at the candelabrum which was standing before them.Looking from side to side, to avoid meeting their gaze, I approached the table, and applied my cigarette to the flame.When it was fairly alight, I involuntarily threw a glance at the gentleman who was eating, and found his grey eyes fixed upon me with an expression of intense displeasure.Just as I was turning away his red moustache moved a little, and he said in French:

"I do not like people to smoke when I am dining, my good sir."

I murmured something inaudible.

"No, I do not like it at all," he went on sternly, and with a glance at his clean-shaven companion, as though inviting him to admire the way in which he was about to deal with me."I do not like it, my good sir, nor do I like people who have the impudence to puff their smoke up one's very nose."

By this time I had gathered that it was myself he was scolding, and at first felt as though I had been altogether in the wrong, "I did not mean to inconvenience you," I said.

"Well, if you did not suppose you were being impertinent, at least I did! You are a cad, young sir!" he shouted in reply.

"But what right have you to shout at me like that?" I exclaimed, feeling that it was now HE that was insulting ME, and growing angry accordingly.

"This much right," he replied, "that I never allow myself to be overlooked by any one, and that I always teach young fellows like yourself their manners.What is your name, young sir, and where do you live?"

At this I felt so hurt that my teeth chattered, and I felt as though I were choking.Yet all the while I was conscious of being in the wrong, and so, instead of offering any further rudeness to the offended one, humbly told him my name and address.

"And MY name, young sir," he returned, "is Kolpikoff, and I will trouble you to be more polite to me in future.--However, You will hear from me again" ("vous aurez de mes nouvelles"--the conversation had been carried on wholly in French), was his concluding remark.

To this I replied, "I shall be delighted," with an infusion of as much hauteur as I could muster into my tone.Then, turning on my heel, I returned with my cigarette--which had meanwhile gone out--

to our own room.

I said nothing, either to my brother or my friends, about what had happened (and the more so because they were at that moment engaged in a dispute of their own), but sat down in a corner to think over the strange affair.The words, "You are a cad, young sir," vexed me more and more the longer that they sounded in my ears.My tipsiness was gone now, and, in considering my conduct during the dispute, the uncomfortable thought came over me that I had behaved like a coward.

"Yet what right had he to attack me?" I reflected."Why did he not simply intimate to me that I was annoying him? After all, it may have been he that was in the wrong.Why, too, when he called me a young cad, did I not say to him, 'A cad, my good sir, is one who takes offence'? Or why did I not simply tell him to hold his tongue? That would have been the better course.Or why did I not challenge him to a duel? No, I did none of those things, but swallowed his insults like a wretched coward."

Still the words, "You are a cad, young sir," kept sounding in my ears with maddening iteration."I cannot leave things as they are," I at length decided as I rose to my feet with the fixed intention of returning to the gentleman and saying something outrageous to him--perhaps, also, of breaking the candelabrum over his head if occasion offered.Yet, though I considered the advisability of this last measure with some pleasure, it was not without a good deal of trepidation that I re-entered the main salon.As luck would have it, M.Kolpikoff was no longer there, but only a waiter engaged in clearing the table.For a moment I felt like telling the waiter the whole story, and explaining to him my innocence in the matter, but for some reason or another I thought better of it, and once more returned, in the same hazy condition of mind, to our own room.

"What has become of our DIPLOMAT?" Dubkoff was just saying."Upon him now hang the fortunes of Europe."