_was_ rather embarrassing to look
the girl in the eye. "You shall wed Doppelkinn next week."

"You will find it rather embarrassing to drag me to the altar,"--evenly.

"You will not," he replied, "create a scandal of such magnitude. You
are untamable, but you are proud."

The girl remained silent. In her heart she knew that he had spoken
truly. She could never make a scene in the cathedral. But she was
determined never to enter it. She wondered if she should produce the
bogus certificate. She decided to wait and see if there were no other
loophole of escape. Old _Rotnaesig_? Not if she died!

When these two talked without apparent heat it was with unalterable
fixedness of purpose. They were of a common race. The duke was
determined that she should wed Doppelkinn; she was equally determined
that she should not. The gentleman with the algebraic bump may figure
this out to suit himself.

"Have you no pity?"

"My reason overshadows it. You do not suppose that I take any especial
pleasure in forcing you? But you leave me no other method."

"I am a young girl, and he is an old man."

"That is immaterial. Besides, the fact has gone abroad. It is now
irrevocable."

"I promise to go out and ask the first man I see to marry me!" she
declared.

"Pray Heaven, it may be Doppelkinn!" said the duke drolly.

"Oh, do not doubt that I have the courage and the recklessness. I
would not care if he were young, but the prince is old enough to be my
father."

"You are not obliged to call him husband." The duke possessed a
sparkle to-night which was unusual in him. Perhaps he had won some of
the state moneys which he had paid out to his ministers' that day.
"Let us not waste any time," he added.

"I shall not waste any,"--ominously.

"Order your gown from Vienna, or Paris, or from wherever you will.
Don't haggle over the price; let it be a good one; I'm willing to go
deep for it."

"You loved my aunt once,"--a broken note in her voice.

"I love her still,"--not unkindly; "but I must have peace in the house.
Observe what you have so far accomplished in the matter of creating
turmoil." The duke took up a paper.

"My sins?"--contemptuously.

"Let us call them your transgressions. Listen. You have ridden a
horse as a man rides it; you have ridden bicycles in public streets;
you have stolen away to a masked ball; you ran away from school in
Paris and visited Heaven knows whom; you have bribed sentries