nevig's face, "is it, then, so
necessary that we should go just now? Do you really insist upon it?
Mr. Dannevig was just telling me some charming adventures of his life
in Denmark."

"I am happy to say," I answered, "that I am so well familiar with Mr.
Dannevig's adventures as to be quite competent to supplement his
fragmentary statements. I shall be very happy to continue the
entertainment--"

"_Sacr--r-r-e nom de Dieu_!" Dannevig burst forth, leaping up from his
seat. "This is more than I can bear!" and he pulled a card from his
portmonnaie and flung it down on the table before me. "May I request
the honor of a meeting?" he continued, in a calmer voice. "It is high
time that we two should settle our difficulties in the only way in
which they are capable of adjustment."

"Mr. Dannevig," I replied, with a cool irony which I was far from
feeling, "the first rule of the code of honor, to which you appeal,
is, as you are aware, that the combatants must be equals in birth and
station. Now, you boast of being of royal blood, while I have no such
claim to distinction. You see, therefore, that your proposition is
absurd."

Miss Hildegard had in the meanwhile risen to take my proffered arm,
and with a profound bow to the indignant hero we moved out of the
room. During our homeward ride hardly a word was spoken; the wheels
rattled away over the uneven pavement and the coachman snapped his
whip, while we sat in opposite corners of the carriage, each pursuing
his or her own lugubrious train of thought. But as we had mounted
together the steps to Mr. Pfeifer's mansion, and I was applying her
latchkey to the lock, she suddenly held out her hand to me, and I
grasped it eagerly and held it close in mine.

"Really," she said in a tone of conciliation, "I like you too well to
wish to quarrel with you. Won't you please tell me candidly why you
objected to my dancing with Mr. Dannevig?"

"With all my heart," I responded warmly; "if you will give me the
opportunity. In the meanwhile you will have to accept my reasons on
trust, and believe that they were very weighty. You may feel assured
that I should not have run the risk of offending you, if I had not
felt convinced that Dannevig is a man whose acquaintance no young lady
can claim with impunity. I have known him for many years, and I do not
speak rashly."

"I am afraid you are a very severe judge," she murmured sadly.
"Good-night."

VII.

During the next months many rum