ould not take place and d'Azay might be got out of Paris.
At all hazards and at all costs St. Aulaire must not go to the Assembly
on the next day. At all hazards and at all costs St. Aulaire must not
know that he, Calvert, desired to prevent his going. He must be
surprised, driven to his own destruction, if it could be done.

Very quietly Calvert arose from his place by the fire, and, passing out
by a door concealed from the rest of the room by the screen, he made his
way through a vestibule, where he put on his coat and hat again and so
back into the room he had just left. But this time he entered noisily
and by an entrance near the table, at which were seated St. Aulaire and
his friends. At sight of St. Aulaire Mr. Calvert affected an extreme
surprise. He bowed low, and smiling, but without a word, he advanced to
him and, drawing off his heavy glove, struck him with it across his
flushed face. The four sprang to their feet, and Bertrand, recognizing
Calvert, called out, "Monsieur--Monsieur Calvert!" All his airs of
equality and importance fell from him, and he ran toward his former
master, but Calvert waved him aside.

"The last time Monsieur de St. Aulaire and I met, gentlemen," says
Calvert, looking around contemptuously at the company, "he insulted me
grossly. Unfortunately he was drunk--drunk, I repeat it, and in no
condition to answer for himself. I demand satisfaction to-night."

"And, by God! you shall have it," cried St. Aulaire, half beside
himself. His face was quite white now except for the red mark across it,
which Calvert's blow had furrowed, and his eyes were wild and staring.
The suddenness and fierceness of Calvert's attack had driven every
thought out of his mind but the wish to avenge the insult offered him,
and almost without a word more the party left the room and went out into
one of the allees of the Champs Elysees close beside the cafe. Such
affairs were so common in the Champs Elysees and elsewhere in Paris in
those days that, though they were but a few feet from the public
thoroughfare, they apprehended no interference from the guard or the
passers-by. 'Twas the aristocratic mode of helping forward the
revolution, and there were almost as many victims by it as by the more
republican one of la lanterne and the pike.

Though it was the first affair of honor that Calvert had ever been
engaged in, the compelling necessity he was under and that unusual
steadiness and calmness of character he pos