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s she invariably wears. These he waved around mockingly and seating himself opposite her, he followed her every motion. The ladies at the same table rose and went away. Then up gets this big ruffian and sits down on the edge of the old lady's chair. I could stand it no longer, but jumping in front of him, showered down all the heavy talk I knew in German, Italian and French, subsiding at last into my mother tongue, with her appropriate epithets. Having sense enough left to know that he could not reap the full benefit of English, I pulled out my card, wrote my address on it, and threw it on the table, and I rather think that was understood. There's no country that I have heard of where men don't know what 'we'll fight this out, means.'" Norman was striding up and down the room now almost as restlessly as Eric had done, but he seated himself again as Mae asked for the rest. "The rest is very simple, Miss Mae--mere business. I turned to go away, and one of his friends approached me to ask for the name of my second. I gave Eric's here. He bowed and said: 'He shall hear from me this evening, and I came home. The evening has advanced to midnight, but not a word yet. No, it is not quite eleven, I see." "You'll have the choice of weapons if they challenge you," said Eric; "you'll take pistols, I suppose? Just think of my living to really assist in a 'pistols-and-coffee-for-two' affair!" "I daresay it will be coffee for two, served separately, and with no thought of pistols. I don't really believe it will come to anything. There are ways of getting out of it," said Norman, lighting a cigarette. "Will you refuse to fight?" asked Mae, and her heart, which had been white with fear for Norman the second before, flashed now with quick, red scorn. Even the Huguenot maiden would, after all, have despised her lover if he had quietly allowed her to tie the white handkerchief to his arm. Believe it, she loved him far, far better as she clung to him, pressed closely to his warm, living heart, because she realized in an agony that his honor was strong enough to burst even the tender bonds of her dear love, and that he would break from her round arms to rush into that ghostly, ghastly death-embrace on the morrow, at the dreadful knell of St. Bartholomew bells. Suppose he had yielded. Suppose we saw him in the picture standing quietly, unresistingly, as her soft fingers bound the white badge, that meant protection and life, to his a
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