ed from the
indiscretion into which you led him last night?"

"If Monseigneur alludes to the affront put upon M. de Mancini touching
his last night's indiscretion, by a bully of the Court, I am informed of
it."

"Pish, Monsieur! I do not follow your fine distinctions--possibly this
is due to my imperfect knowledge of the language of France, possibly to
your own imperfect acquaintance with the language of truth."

"Monseigneur!"

"Faugh!" he cried, half scornfully, half peevishly. "I came not here to
talk of you, but of my nephew. Why did he visit you?"

"To do me the honour of asking me to second him at St. Germain this
evening."

"And so you think that this duel is to be fought?--that my nephew is to
be murdered?"

"We will endeavour to prevent his being--as your Eminence daintily puts
it--murdered. But for the rest, the duel, methinks, cannot be avoided."

"Cannot!" he blazed. "Do you say cannot, M. de Luynes? Mark me well,
sir: I will use no dissimulation with you. My position in France is
already a sufficiently difficult one. Already we are threatened with a
second Fronde. It needs but such events as these to bring my family into
prominence and make it the butt for the ridicule that malcontents but
wait an opportunity to slur it with. This affair of Andrea's will lend
itself to a score or so of lampoons and pasquinades, all of which
will cast an injurious reflection upon my person and position. That,
Monsieur, is, methinks, sufficient evil to suffer at your hands. The
late Cardinal would have had you broken on the wheel for less. I have
gone no farther than to dismiss you from my service--a clemency for
which you should be grateful. But I shall not suffer that, in addition
to the harm already done, Andrea shall be murdered by Canaples."

"I shall do my best to render him assistance."

"You still misapprehend me. This duel, sir, must not take place."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"How does your Eminence propose to frustrate it? Will you arrest
Canaples?"

"Upon what plea, Monsieur? Think you I am anxious to have the whole of
Paris howling in my ears?"

"Then possibly it is your good purpose to enforce the late king's edict
against duelling, and send your guards to St. Germain to arrest the men
before they engage?"

"Benone!" he sneered. "And what will Paris say if I now enforce a law
that for ten years has been disregarded? That I feared for my nephew's
skin and took this means of saving him. A prett