had accepted
repulses in his time with more equanimity than he could muster when
ruminating afterward on the discomfiture of Royston Keene.

Some days later the subject was discussed at the Cercle, and one of the
_habitues_ hazarded several cunning conjectures, and more than cynical
surmises. (Did you ever hear a thoroughly profligate Frenchman sneer a
woman's character away? It is almost worth while overcoming your disgust
to listen to the diabolical ingenuity of his innuendoes. The scandal of
our bitterest dowagers sounds charitable by comparison.) The savage
outbreak of the Algerian's temper, that every one had long been
expecting, came at last with a vengeance.

"Tu mens, canaille! C'est le meilleur eloge de M. Keene, que les marans
comme toi, ne puissent le comprendre. Quand a Mademoiselle--elle vaut
mille fois tes soeurs, et ta mere. Si tu as le coeur de pousser
l'affaire, je te donnerai raison sur mes bequilles. Pour le pistolet, ma
main n'est pas encore percluse." He held it out, as steady and strong as
it was in the old days when it could sway the sabre from dawn to
twilight and never know weariness.

If the other persuaded himself that consideration for the invalid's
infirmities made him patient under the insult, his friends were less
romantically credulous: the stigma of that night cleaves to him still.
Brazen it out as he may, the hang-dog look remains, telling us that the
barriers have been at least once broken down which separate the man from
the serf. There would be, perhaps, less mischief abroad if slander were
always so promptly and amply avenged.

CHAPTER XXII.

Not long after the events here recorded came a time that we all remember
right well, when, without note of preparation, the war-trumpets sounded
from the east and the north; when Europe woke up, like a giant
refreshed, from the slumber of a forty years' peace, and took down
disused weapons from the wall, and donned a rusted armor. It was a time
rife with romantic episodes, and, as such seasons must ever be, fraught
with peril to the prudence of womankind. There was perpetual recurrence
of the striking antithesis which happened at Brussels before Waterloo,
when the roll of the distant cannon at Quatre Bras mingled with the
music of the duchess's ball. The coldest reserve is apt to melt rapidly,
and the most skillful coquetry is brought to bay, when opposed to
pleading urged possibly for the last time. Those were days of rebuke and