CHAPTER XXXII 

THE DAWN 

M. le Comte de Stainville only shrugged his shoulders when M. de Belle-Isle and young de Lugeac brought him milor's reply. 

"Bah!" he said with a sneer, "he'll have to fight me later on or I'll hound him out of France! Never fear, gentlemen, we'll have our meed of fun very soon." 

On the whole Gaston was not sorry that this stupid so-called "affair of honour" would not force him to rise before dawn. He had no special ill-will against _le petit Anglais_, for whom he had always tried to cultivate a modicum of contempt. He had not always succeeded in this praiseworthy endeavour, for milor as a rule chose to ignore M. de Stainville, as far as, and often more than, courtesy permitted. 

The two men had not often met since the memorable evening when milor snatched the golden prize which Gaston had so clumsily cast aside. Their tastes were very dissimilar, and so was their entourage. Milor was officially considered to belong to the Queen's set, whilst Gaston clung to the more entertaining company of Madame de Pompadour and her friends; nor had M. de Stainville had the bad grace to interfere with his wife's obvious predeliction for Lord Eglinton's company. 

The memorable day which was just drawing to its close had seen many changes--changes that were almost upheavals of old traditions and of habitual conditions of court life. Gaston had deceived and then hideously outraged the woman whom long ago he had already wronged. A year ago she had humiliated him, had snatched from him the golden prize which his ambition had coveted, and which she made him understand that he could not obtain without her. To-day had been his hour; he had dragged her down to the very mire in which he himself had grovelled, he had laid her pride to dust and shaken the pinnacle of virtue and integrity on which she stood. 
and what did she do to him a year ago?
she had humiliated him