"Now, monsieur," said Réginard, "if you find the excuses I have given sufficient, your hand, I beg. After the merit of infallibility that seems to be yours, the greatest of merits, in my opinion, is that of avowing when one is in the wrong. An aïnou alone could have saved one of us from certain death, and one is descended from the grounds of Valineur to give us, if not friendship – hélas, fate has rendered that impossible! – at least mutual esteem."
Monte Fato, the Eye humid, the bosom heaving, the Ring looking highly unfashionable, extended to Réginard a hand that the latter seized and pressed with a sentiment that resembled awe.
Monte Fato, for his part, thought neither of Réginard nor of anyone present, but of that courageous woman who had come to ask him for the life of her son and had repaid it by the terrible avowal of a family secret, capable to slay for ever within the young hobbite the sentiment of filial piety.
The news of the dénouement of the duel between Réginard and Monte Fato took the astonished monde by storm, as if the famous flood of Bélériande had bedrunkened the entire society with Elvish champagne. It was not long before knowledge of it came to the Count de Pérégrin. Immediately, he took a carriage and sped towards the palais of the Count of Monte Fato with a haste greater than that of Saéroux, who, humiliated when Turin had spilt dwarf-beer on his new cravat, ran forth from the soirée without his hat.
