"Pardon me," she said, raising her hand, but still speaking in the
same even tone. "Let me explain myself fully. Your own friends said in
my hearing," she went on, "that they did not desire a fight. It is
then my remark only which apparently makes it inevitable."

She drew herself up and her tone grew even more distant and
disdainful.

"Now, it is not possible," she exclaimed, "that you and your friends
are going to take advantage of my mistake, and make it the excuse for
this meeting. Suppose any harm should come to my brother." For the
first time her voice carried a touch of feeling. "It would be my
fault. I would always have myself to blame. And I want to ask you not
to fight him. I want to ask you to withdraw from this altogether."

I was completely confused. Never before had a young lady of a class
which I had so seldom met, spoken to me even in the words of everyday
civility, and now this one, who was the most wonderful and beautiful
woman I had ever seen, was asking me to grant an impossible favor, was
speaking of my reputation for bravery as though it were a fact which
everyone accepted, and was begging me not to make her suffer. What
added to my perplexity was that she asked me to act only as I desired
to act, but she asked it in such a manner that every nerve in me
rebelled.

I could not understand how she could ask so great a favor of one she
held in such evident contempt. It seemed to me that she should not
have addressed me at all, or if she did ask me to stultify my honor
and spare the life of her precious brother she should not have done so