ith
Augustus. I traded a duchy for my personal liberty. Frankly, I would
be sorry to connect a sharer of my blood with the assault of yesterday.
To be unpardonably candid, I have not ever found that your assertion of
an event quite proved it had gone through the formality of occurring.
And so I shall hold to my bargain."

"The night brings counsel," Desmarets returned. "It hardly needs a
night, I think, to demonstrate that all I say is true."

And so they parted.

Having thus dismissed such trifles as statecraft and the well-being of
empires, Paul Vanderhoffen turned toward consideration of the one
really serious subject in the universe, which was of course the bright,
miraculous and incredible perfection of Mildred Claridge.

"I wonder what you think of me? I wonder if you ever think of me?" The
thought careered like a caged squirrel, now that he walked through
autumn woods toward her home.

"I wish that you were not so sensible. I wish your mother were not
even more so. The woman reeks with common-sense, and knows that to be
common is to be unanswerable. I wish that a dispute with her were not
upon a par with remonstrance against an earthquake."

He lighted a fresh cheroot. "And so you are to marry the Brudenel
title and bank account, with this particular Heleigh thrown in as a
dividend. And why not? the estate is considerable; the man who
encumbers it is sincere in his adoration of you; and, chief of all,
Lady John Claridge has decreed it. And your decision in any matter has
always lain between the claws of that steel-armored crocodile who, by
some miracle, is your mother. Oh, what a universe! were I of hasty
temperament I would cry out, TUT AND GO TO!"

This was the moment which the man hid in the thicket selected as most
fit for intervention through the assistance of a dueling pistol. Paul
Vanderhoffen reeled, his face bewilderment. His hands clutched toward
the sky, as if in anguish he grasped at some invisible support, and he
coughed once or twice. It was rather horrible. Then Vanderhoffen
shivered as though he were very cold, and tottered and collapsed in the
parched roadway.

A slinking man whose lips were gray and could not refrain from
twitching came toward the limp heap. "So----!" said the man. One of
his hands went to the tutor's breast, and in his left hand dangled a
second dueling pistol. He had thrown away the other after firing it.

"And so----!" observed Paul Vanderhoffen