'I do.'

'It lies.'

Tresten remarked to Count Walburg: 'These visits are provocations.'

'They are not so intended,' said the count, bowing pacifically. His
friend was not a man of the sword, and was not under the obligation to
accept an insult. They left the letter to do its work.

Big natures in their fits of explosiveness must be taken by flying shots,
as dwarfs peep on a monster, or the Scythian attacked a phalanx. Were we
to hear all the roarings of the shirted Heracles, a world of comfortable
little ones would doubt the unselfishness of his love of Dejaneira.
Yes, really; they would think it was not a chivalrous love: they would
consider that he thought of himself too much. They would doubt, too,
of his being a gentleman! Partial glimpses of him, one may fear, will be
discomposing to simple natures. There was a short black eruption. Alvan
controlled it, to ask hastily what the baroness thought and what she had
heard of Clotilde. Tresten made sign that it was nothing of the best.

'See! my girl has hundreds of enemies, and I, only I, know her and can
defend her--weak, base shallow trickster, traitress that she is!' cried
Alvan, and came down in a thundershower upon her: 'Yesterday--the day
before--when? just now, here, in this room; gave herself--and now!'
He bent, and immediately straightening his back, addressed Colonel von
Tresten as her calumniator, 'Say your worst of her, and I say I will make
of that girl the peerless woman of earth! I! in earnest! it's no dream.
She can be made . . . . O God! the beast has turned tail! I knew she