notoriety that would have followed my having done so.

But I could never let his sister know that I had only fired in the
air, and I knew that if I fought her brother she would always look
upon me as one who had attempted to murder him. I could never speak to
her, or even look at her again. And at that moment I felt that if I
did not meet her, I could go without meeting any other women for many
years to come. She was the most wonderful creature I had ever seen.
She was not beautiful, as Beatrice was beautiful, in a womanly,
gracious way, but she had the beauty of something unattainable.
Instead of inspiring you, she filled you with disquiet. She seemed to
me a regal, goddess-like woman, one that a man might worship with that
tribute of fear and adoration that savages pay to the fire and the
sun.

I had ceased to blush because she had laughed at us. I had begun to
think that it was quite right that she should do so. To her we were
lawless adventurers, exiles, expatriates, fugitives. She did not know
that most of us were unselfish, and that our cause was just. She
thought, if she thought of us at all, that we were trying to levy
blackmail on her father. I did not blame her for despising us. I only
wished I could tell her how she had been deceived, and assure her that
among us there was one, at least, who thought of her gratefully and
devotedly, and who would suffer much before he would hurt her or hers.
I knew that this was so, and I hoped her brother would not be such an
ass as to insist upon a duel, and make me pretend to fight him, that
her father would be honest enough to pay his debts, and that some day
she and I might be friends.

But these hopes were killed by the entrance of Miller and Von Ritter.