"Isn't it all a joke?" asked Mae, pushing her head out of the window
again, to hide the sudden white terror in her face. "I didn't suppose
Americans fought duels when they were off pleasuring." This sentence Mae
meant to pass as a gay, light, easy speech, to prove that Norman Mann
and a duel were not such a very dreadful combination to her feminine
mind.

"NO, it is no joke, but dead earnest," replied Eric. "I am to be his
second, and you must keep it a great secret, Mae, till it is all over."

"All over!"--a sudden vision of Norman lying white and motionless with
a deep wound across his soft, brown temple. Mae closed her eyes. "I
suppose I might as well tell you about it," said Norman, "now that this
stupid Eric has let out about the affair, although it may never come to
anything. I was dining to-night at a little restaurant on the Felice, a
quiet, homelike place, which a good many artists, and especially women,
frequent. There is a queer, crazy little American, who thinks herself
a painter, and is a harmless lunatic, who is a regular guest at this
restaurant. Everybody smiles at her absurdities, but is ready enough to
be kind to the poor old creature. To-night, however, I was hardly seated
when in came a party of Germans, all in mask and Carnival costume. One
of them was arrayed in exact imitation of this old lady. He had on a
peaked bonnet and long, black gloves, with dangling fingers, such as she
invariably wears. These he waved around mockingly and seating himself
opposite her, he followed her every motion. The ladies at the same table
rose and went away. Then up gets this big ruffian and sits down on the
edge of the old lady's chair. I could stand it no longer, but jumping in
front of him, showered down all the heavy talk I knew in German,
Italian and French, subsiding at last into my mother tongue, with her
appropriate epithets. Having sense enough left to know that he could not