ss, and draw lots to see who must
drink it. That's sometimes done. I've read of it!"

The Baron, naturally rather impatient, addressed him in a harsh tone:

"These gentlemen are waiting for your answer. This is indecent, to put
it shortly. What weapons are you going to take? Come! is it the sword?"

The Vicomte gave an affirmative reply by merely nodding his head; and it
was arranged that the meeting should take place next morning at seven
o'clock sharp at the Maillot gate.

Dussardier, being compelled to go back to his business, Regimbart went
to inform Frederick about the arrangement. He had been left all day
without any news, and his impatience was becoming intolerable.

"So much the better!" he exclaimed.

The Citizen was satisfied with his deportment.

"Would you believe it? They wanted an apology from us. It was nothing--a
mere word! But I knocked them off their beam-ends nicely. The right
thing to do, wasn't it?"

"Undoubtedly," said Frederick, thinking that it would have been better
to choose another second.

Then, when he was alone, he repeated several times in a very loud tone:

"I am going to fight! Hold on, I am going to fight! 'Tis funny!"

And, as he walked up and down his room, while passing in front of the
mirror, he noticed that he was pale.

"Have I any reason to be afraid?"

He was seized with a feeling of intolerable misery at the prospect of
exhibiting fear on the ground.

"And yet, suppose I happen to be killed? My father met his death the
same way. Yes, I shall be killed!"

And, suddenly, his mother rose up before him in a black dress;
incoherent images floated before his mind. His own cowardice exasperated
him. A paroxysm of courage, a thirst for human blood, took possession of
him. A battalion could not have made him retreat. When this feverish
excitement had cooled down, he was overjoyed to feel that his nerves
were perfectly steady. In order to divert his thoughts, he went to the
opera, where a ballet was being performed. He listened to the music,
looked at the _danseuses_ through his opera-glass, and drank a glass of
punch between the acts. But when he got home again, the sight of his
study, of his furniture, in the midst of which he found himself for the
last time, made him feel ready to swoon.

He went down to the garden. The stars were shining; he gazed up at them.
The idea of fighting about a woman gave him a greater importance in his
own eyes, and surrounded him with a