urned his rolling eyes upon me. "Damn you!" he
muttered through his clinched teeth--then suddenly raising his voice to
a positive shriek, he cried, "I will have your blood if I have to tear
your heart for it!"--and he made an effort to spring upon me. The
Marquis D'Avencourt quietly caught his other arm and held it as in a
vise.

"Not so fast, not so fast, mon cher" he said, coolly. "We are not
murderers, we! What devil possesses you, that you offer such
unwarrantable insult to our host?"

"Ask HIM!" replied Ferrari, fiercely, struggling to release himself
from the grasp of the two Frenchmen--"he knows well enough! Ask HIM!"

All eyes were turned inquiringly upon me. I was silent.

"The noble conte is really not bound to give any explanation," remarked
Captain Freccia--"even admitting he were able to do so."

"I assure you, my friends," I said, "I am ignorant of the cause of this
fracas, except that this young gentleman had pretensions himself to the
hand of the lady whose name affects him so seriously!"

For a moment I thought Ferrari would have choked.

"Pretensions--pretensions!" he gasped. "Gran Dio! Hear him!--hear the
miserable scoundrel!"

"Ah, basta!" exclaimed Chevalier Mancini, scornfully--"Is that all? A
mere bagatelle! Ferrari, you were wont to be more sensible! What!
quarrel with an excellent friend for the sake of a woman who happens to
prefer him to you! Ma che! Women are plentiful--friends are few."

"If," I resumed, still methodically wiping the stains of wine from my
coat and vest--"if Signor Ferrari's extraordinary display of temper is
a mere outcome of natural disappointment, I am willing to excuse it. He
is young and hotblooded--let him apologize, and I shall freely pardon
him."

"By my faith!" said the Duke di Marina with indignation, "such
generosity is unheard of, conte! Permit me to remark that it is
altogether exceptional, after such ungentlemanly conduct."

Ferrari looked from one to the other in silent fury. His face had grown
pale as death. He wrenched himself from the grasp of D'Avencourt and De
Hamal.

"Fools! let me go!" he said, savagely. "None of you are on my side--I
see that!" He stepped to the table, poured out a glass of water and
drank it off. He then turned and faced me--his head thrown back, his
eyes blazing with wrath and pain.

"Liar!" he cried again, "double-faced accursed liar! You have stolen
HER--you have fooled ME--but, by G-d, you shall pay for it with you