lly down on Norman Mann as he said this. She had had a
wide experience, and had rarely seen such a stupid, cowardly fellow, so
she thought. Yet, after all, Norman only acted in self-defense. Here was
a girl by his side who gloried, as it seemed to him, in her freedom, and
that being so, he must get away as soon as possible from that window,
that moon, and that little girl.

"Well, Norman," cried Eric, advancing eagerly as they turned from the
window, "when do you really suppose it will come off?"

"Suppose what will come off?" inquired Mae.

"O, I forgot you were here. Well, don't tell any one else. Norman is to
fight a duel."

"To fight a duel--and be killed?" gasped Mae.

"You have but a poor opinion of my powers," laughed Norman, "although
the German looked a veteran duellist from his scars. His face was fairly
embroidered or fancy-worked with red lines. A sort of hem in his nose,
and tucks and seams all over his cheeks. Notice my knowledge in this
line, Miss Mae. You ought to be ashamed, Eric, to have spoken of it."

"Isn't it all a joke?" asked Mae, pushing her head out of the window
again, to hide the sudden white terror in her face. "I didn't suppose
Americans fought duels when they were off pleasuring." This sentence Mae
meant to pass as a gay, light, easy speech, to prove that Norman Mann
and a duel were not such a very dreadful combination to her feminine
mind.

"NO, it is no joke, but dead earnest," replied Eric. "I am to be his
second, and you must keep it a great secret, Mae, till it is all over."

"All over!"--a sudden vision of Norman lying white and motionless with
a deep wound across his soft, brown temple. Mae closed her eyes. "I
suppose I might as well tell you about it," said Norman, "now that this
stupid Eric has let out about the affair, although it may never come to
anything. I was dining to-night at a little restaurant on the Felice, a
quiet, homelike place, which a good many artists, and especially women,
frequent. There is a queer, crazy little American, who thinks herself
a painter, and is a harmless lunatic, who is a regular guest at this
restaurant. Everybody smiles at her absurdities, but is ready enough to
be kind to the poor old creature. To-night, however, I was hardly seated
when in came a party of Germans, all in mask and Carnival costume. One
of them was arrayed in exact imitation of this old lady. He had on a
peaked bonnet and long, black gloves, with dangling fingers, such a