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"She waved her hand-I turned away; but the tune of 'The girl I left behind me' rang in my ears, and I plainly felt the tears in my eyes.

"And now comes the end of my naration. When I was about to leave the house I discovered that I had left my shako in the drawing-room. Leaping upstairs, I entered just as Helen was threading a flower through Wiggett's button

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holes. He, the beast! had his hands in his side pockets, just as if he was quite used to receiving such little attentions, and she-she was humming Robert, toi que j'aime.

"There was a scene, I need not say. Flinging my sword upon a table, I loudly accused Helen of trifling, of heartlessness. She laughed. Wiggett whistled louder than ever. I told him he was a coward, and flung my glove at his feet. He picked it up, spread it on his hand, and merely said, 'By Jove-what a fist!' He afterwards called Helen's dog, and tickled his tail with my challenge.

"Sick of such heartlessness and polltroonery, I made a sarcastic bow, and left the room. Sir, in one week I had almost forgotten that such beings existed. And as a proof that I have totally recovered, I now give you a sketch of the scene and tell you the story, that the Army and the Volunteers may see what the girls they leave behind them really think of their Conquering Heros.

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THE next morning, as Hippolytus Randeuil sat quietly smoking a cigar, thinking a good deal about Alice and a little about Madame Dupastel, his servant came in, and announced a visitor, "General Thorigaon," a handsome old fellow, who looked the soldier from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. The general had no doubt M. Randeuil would "guess" the object of his visit: he came from M. Lareynie. Randeuil threw his cigar into the fire.

"General," said he, "what I may guess about it is so extravagant that I should prefer to have from your lips a positive statement of your errand."

"Categorically, then," said the old fire-eater, "you and M. Lareynie have had a quarrel; it is his wish that things should take their natural course; and I have consequently to request that you will fix the day and hour of a meeting."

"Sir, you are M. Lareynie's friend, not mine. Nevertheless, I will ask you to judge between us. Honestly, then, do you think that I can accept this challenge?" "I do not see why not," quietly replied the plenipotentiary.

“General, for a thousand reasons; and, first, M. Lareynie's age.”

"His age is mine; or, rather, I am older than he is. But if you had offended me, I should expect you to accept a challenge from me, in spite of my grey hairs. That reason will not do, sir. Give me another."

"His infirmities."

"Oh, a little rheumatism in the right arm which he lays to an accident in hunting? Well, who hasn't a touch of rheumatism? That only affects the question of weapons; and I shall propose pistols to your second. I tried the colonel this morning, and find he fires steadily."

"But, sir, I respect, I venerate M. Lareynie!" said Hippolytus, invoking the image of Alice.

"Very good. A duel is no proof of disrespect: we don't fight with people whom we despise."

"General!" said the young man, driven into a corner, "you cannot conceive my repugnance to this duel. The origin of it is the merest foolery, I do assure you. Can't we arrange matters anyhow?"

"Sir," answered the veteran, rising to go, "if there had been any possibility of an amicable settlement, I should have availed myself of it, and gladly, before coming to see you; but my errand is formal, and final. Oblige me, then, with a positive answer. Will you fight? Yes or no."

"No," said Hippolytus.

The general bowed and bit his lips; but his face was calm and impassive as he replied

"Neither Colonel Lareynie nor I had calculated on a positive refusal to accept a challenge, and I must, therefore, return and take fresh instructions. But I will call on you again instantly."

Now the idea of a second visit, in the course of the same day, from this warlike personage, did not please Randeuil.

"Give me," said he, "four-and-twenty hours to consider. At the end of that

time, I will call upon you, instead of giving you the trouble to come hither again."

"As you please," said the general. to-morrow at two o'clock precisely."

"Here is my card. I shall expect you

The moment the general was gone, Randeuil dressed himself in hot haste, and, sallying out, took a cab to Madame Dupastel's.

"You here again!" exclaimed the pretty widow, as he came in. "Are you going to take my room by assault every day?"

"Madame," said Randeuil, "my business is serious. If you do not interfere, I am under the necessity of either killing M. Lareynie or of being killed by him." "Oh, oh! he said something about that sort of thing yesterday, just as he was going away. Why, don't you like the idea of fighting him?"

"Put yourself in my place. It would not be very pleasant for me to be killed by a man of his age; and, if I kill him, how can I show my face to Alice any more?" "It would only be the old story of the Cid and Ximena over again,” said the lady, with a smile which showed that she would not think much of such a conjuncture.

"Do not laugh at me, my beautiful, my kind protectress, but help me! I have only twenty-four hours given me in which to decide. Recollect, here's the colonel, and his old friend the general, thirsting for my blood."

"Just so; have you anything else to observe?"

"Isn't that enough? No-that is all."

"Then have the goodness to take yourself off directly. Three calls in three days! it's unbearable. My servants must have wondered what it means already. Just go home; make yourself comfortable; and don't show your face here till I ask you to call again."

"But pray, if you please, don't let me be killed, will you?" said Randeuil, putting on the frightened behaviour of a little boy.

"No," said Erminia, "that would be a pity!"-and she could not help an admiring glance, though but for a moment, at the manly figure and expressive features of her protégé. As soon as he had left, Madame Dupastel wrote a very short note to M. Lareynie, and sent it by her servant. The old man obeyed the summons which it contained, and soon entered her drawing-room, with a face on which was written the resolve to conquer or to die.

VIII.

Madame Dupastel had really been afraid that the shock received by her jealous adorer might, at his age, prove mortal, and she therefore examined him very attentively when he appeared before her. He certainly did not appear much hurt. The prospect of a duel had put new life into the old boy, and he stepped in with his head up, his chest out, his back erect, and his legs flexible and “limber.” Erminia felt her conscience a little eased; and, finding that there was no necessity for being very tender with him, she fell back into her old despotic ways.

"I have to beg your pardon, colonel, for having put you out so, and will not now trespass upon your good-nature, having but five words to say. I have just learnt that you have challenged M. Randeuil."

"Then he has been cowardly enough to tell you, has he?"

“Prudent enough, colonel. Young people must manage to keep their wits

about them, if their elders lose theirs. All I have to say lies in a nutshell. You two gentlemen are your own masters, but I have a right to interfere in a quarrel which is all about me; and I have simply to observe that, if this foolish duel comes off, our marriage is at an end, and you never enter this house again."

The colonel made several struggles to get this decision modified, but in vain. What was worse, Madame Dupastel insisted on his instantly writing a letter to Randeuil, retracting the challenge; the alternative was-dismissal for ever from her presence. We need not detail his useless efforts to escape from so difficult a situation. Madame Dupastel was inexorable. Would she swear to the explanation she gave him yesterday? Certainly not; he should have believed her then. Would she promise never to see that coxcomb any more? Certainly not; he had promised to leave her at liberty in the choice of her friends and acquaintances after marriage, and she chose to exercise the same privilege before it. "But he is in love with you!" How could she help that if it were so?

"Well, what am I to do if I find the fellow dangling about you always?"

"Do, colonel? Do what all sensible men do who have rivals-try to cut him out; make yourself as agreeable as ever you can. That's the way to win a woman-not with pistols, or swords, or what not. Understand me, then; for the present, provisionally, my door is open to M. Randeuil; I now bind myself to nothing; I demand your unconditional obedience."

After another struggle, during the course of which Erminia had, once or twice, to stifle suggestions of pity for her adorer, M. Lareynie wrote the letter and signed it. In a few seconds it was on the way to Randeuil, and it was too late for the poor old colonel to retract, though he seemed very much inclined to do so.

Nobody doubts that women have, among other gifts, that of following up a victory and profiting by a success. Beaten on the duel question, M. Lareynie was now in the position of a man who had given up his sword and surrendered at discretion; he could not manage to hold up his head again. Every day the conspiracy against him, in which circumstances and persons appeared to have united, assumed fresh features; every day it seemed more firmly knit, and more capable of aggression. Every day, when he called, M. Lareynie either found Randeuil already with Madame Dupastel, or found that he trod quickly upon his own heels. Still, he could not violate the treaty of peace which he had himself signed, and the least infraction of which would have got him banished; so that no vent remained for his jealous rage but sarcastic inuendoes and muttered imprecations on himself, on Randeuil, on everybody. Our friend Hippolytus managed to follow Erminia about pretty closely: he got himself invited to the parties she went to, and the colonel was forced to sit or stand still, and see his mistress swinging, in the waltz, in the arms of his imagined rival; while his angry, impatient looks put (let us confess it) fresh life into her, who danced all the more, and assumed her best looks and most attractive manners. Only one thing can come of a lady making herself as agreeable as possible-the gentleman is sure to do the same; and this Randeuil did, by so natural an impulse, that he was half unconscious of it. Byand-by the beautiful widow began to ask herself, "Can this be all a farce?" And then, the more she admired the skill with which the young man played his part, the less at ease she felt herself in her own, and the less she liked looking forward to the probable dénouement of the play. The inexplicable dislike she had felt towards Alice, from the very prologue of it, deepened every day, and she now

seldom pronounced her name. With a discretion sufficiently uncommon among lovers, Hippolytus followed her example. In fact, the play began to look so very unlike a play, and the love-making so much like the real thing, that a much less jealous man than the colonel might have been pardoned for feeling very uneasy.

IX.

One evening, the three actors in this little drama, Erminia, M. Lareynie, and Hippolytus, were at a quiet party at the house of the lady's aunt. The old lady drew off the colonel to a game at cards, Erminia sat down to the piano, with a smile at his lugubrious countenance, and Randeuil, after pretending for a few moments to feel interested in the game, came to her side, and began an underbreathed conversation with her.

"Do you know, sir, that the time I gave you was up more than a week ago?" said Madame Dupastel, running her fingers at random over the keys.

"No, it can't be ?" replied Hippolytus, admiring the soft white hand of the beautiful widow.

"Yes, our play has lasted four-and-twenty days--I have counted them." "Have they seemed long to you?" said the young man, softly.

"Do people count the days when they think them long?" replied Erminia, half-drowning her own words in the noise she made on the keys. It was an outburst of energy that was soon over, however.

"Would not anybody say," she resumed, "that he was in the conspiracy? He's as cross, and jealous, and sulky, and snappish as he can live; I can see that he would like to shoot you; but he won't give in. If he were as fond of me as he pretends, he would have done it before now. But you will see how obstinate an old soldier can be: la garde meurt et ne se rend pas!"

"Play something nice to amuse the colonel, he is so dull to-night!" said the old aunt, coming up to the instrument. And Erminia and Hippolytus began the duet in the second act of "Guillaume Tell." When it was over, the colonel walked to the side of Erminia, and, addressing himself to her with the air of a man who has just taken an extreme resolution, said—

"You are very fond of music; I have a little musician to introduce to you, if you will permit me."

"Who is it?" said Erminia.

"My daughter, who leaves school to-morrow," replied the colonel, walking off. "Come, the Imperial Guard gives in !" whispered Hippolytus to Erminia, with much animation. Erminia looked up at him, tried to smile, spoilt her face in doing so, darted from the piano, sat down by her aunt's side, and never spoke a word for the rest of the evening.

Hippolytus was right in his whispered conjecture. At first the colonel had thought his behaviour mere insolence which demanded chastisement; but, as time wore on, he began to perceive changes in that of Madame Dupastel which seemed to prophesy that she might soon take them as anything but insolent. Now, there are certain times—at the toilet, for instance-when an old man sees himself pretty much as he really is. M. Lareynie began to reflect that he stood but little chance of success with this young widow if he allowed the competition of a man of fiveand-twenty; and he, at last, made up his mind that he would accept Raudeuil for a son-in-law.

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