nd only the blood of Count Belleville can
wash them away."

He bowed to Ranuzi, and joined his daughter, who, pale and trembling,
awaited him in the next room.

"Oh, father," said she, with tears gushing from her eyes, "your life is
in danger--you meet death on my account!"

"No, thank God, my child, your name will not be mixed up in this affair.
No one can say that the mortified father revenged an insult offered
to his daughter. I fight this duel not for you, but because of the
nutshells behind the fauteuil of the queen."

CHAPTER IX. THE DUEL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Early in the morning two horsemen dashed down the Linden. Their loud
conversation, their pert and noisy laughter, aroused the curiosity of
the porters who stood yawning in the house-doors, and the maids opened
the windows and gazed curiously at the two gallant French officers who
were taking such an early ride to the Thiergarden. When the girls were
young and pretty, Belleville threw them a kiss as he passed by, and
commanded them to give it with his tenderest greeting to their fair
mistress.

"Happily," said his companion, "these good Berliners do not understand
our speech sufficiently to inform their mistresses of this last
insolence of Count Belleville."

"They do not, but their mistresses do, and I cannot think that they are
still sleeping. No, I am convinced they have risen early, and are now
standing behind their maids, and watching us go by. In this street dwell
those who call themselves society; they were at the castle yesterday,
and know of this duel. I think our good marquise will one day reward
me richly for this duel, when I tell her I stood behind the queen and
cracked nuts like a gamin in Paris, and that I was shot at because
of the nutshells. She will laugh tears--tears which I will strive to
convert into diamonds for myself."

"You feel assured that you will return unharmed from this duel?"

"Yes, I cannot doubt it. I always won the prize at our pistol-shooting
in Paris, and then, this stupid Dutchman is, without doubt, horrified at
the thought of shooting at a man, and not at a mark. No, vraiment, I do
not doubt but I shall be victorious, and I rejoice in anticipation of
that dejeuner dinatoire with which my friends will celebrate it."

"But," said his second, "let us for a moment suppose that you are not
victorious; one must ever be prepared in this poor world, ruled by
accident, for the worst that can befall. In case y