reap the full benefit of English, I pulled out my card, wrote my
address on it, and threw it on the table, and I rather think that was
understood. There's no country that I have heard of where men don't know
what 'we'll fight this out, means.'" Norman was striding up and down the
room now almost as restlessly as Eric had done, but he seated himself
again as Mae asked for the rest.

"The rest is very simple, Miss Mae--mere business. I turned to go away,
and one of his friends approached me to ask for the name of my second.
I gave Eric's here. He bowed and said: 'He shall hear from me this
evening, and I came home. The evening has advanced to midnight, but not
a word yet. No, it is not quite eleven, I see."

"You'll have the choice of weapons if they challenge you," said Eric;
"you'll take pistols, I suppose? Just think of my living to really
assist in a 'pistols-and-coffee-for-two' affair!"

"I daresay it will be coffee for two, served separately, and with no
thought of pistols. I don't really believe it will come to anything.
There are ways of getting out of it," said Norman, lighting a cigarette.

"Will you refuse to fight?" asked Mae, and her heart, which had been
white with fear for Norman the second before, flashed now with quick,
red scorn. Even the Huguenot maiden would, after all, have despised her
lover if he had quietly allowed her to tie the white handkerchief to
his arm. Believe it, she loved him far, far better as she clung to him,
pressed closely to his warm, living heart, because she realized in an
agony that his honor was strong enough to burst even the tender bonds of
her dear love, and that he would break from her round arms to rush into
that ghostly, ghastly death-embrace on the morrow, at the dreadful knell