of St. Peter at
the summit of the column overlooks. Around the base of the sculptured
marble, legends attest the triumph of the humble Galilean fisherman who
landed at the port of the Tiber 1800 years ago, unknown, persecuted, a
beggar. What a symbol and what counsel to say with the apostle: "Whither
shall we go, Lord? Thou alone hast the words of eternal life!"

But Gorka was neither a Montfanon nor a Dorsenne to hear within his heart
or his mind the echo of such precepts. He was a man of passion and of
action, who only saw his passion and his actions in the position in which
fortune threw him. A fresh access of fury recalled to him Maitland's
attitude of the preceding day. This time he would no longer control
himself. He violently pulled the surprised coachman's sleeve, and called
out to him the address of the Rue Leopardi in so imperative a tone that
the horse began again to trot as he had done before, and the cab to go
quickly through the labyrinth of streets. A wave of tragical desire
rolled into the young man's heart. No, he would not bear that affront. He
was too bitterly wounded in the most sensitive chords of his being, in
his love as well as his pride. Both struggled within him, and another
instinct as well, urging him to the mad step he was about to take. The
ancient blood of the Palatines, with regard to which Dorsenne always
jested, boiled in his veins. If the Poles have furnished many heroes for
dramas and modern romances, they have remained, through their faults, so
dearly atoned for, the race the most chivalrously, the most madly brave
in Europe. When men of so intemperate and so complex an excitability are
touched to a certain depth, they think of a duel as naturally as the
descendants of a line of suicides think of killing themselves.

Joyous Ardea, with his Italian keenness, had seen at a glance the end to
which Gorka's nature would lead him. The betrayed lover required a duel
to enable him to bear the treason. He might wound, he might, perhaps,
kill his rival, and his passion would be satisfied, or else he would risk
being killed himself, and the courage he would display braving death
would suffice to raise him in his own estimation. A mad thought possessed
him and caused him to hasten toward the Rue Leopardi, to provoke his
rival suddenly and before Madame Steno! Ah, what pleasure it would give
him to see her tremble, for she surely would tremble when she saw him
enter the studio! But he would be c