if it please you, continue this matter to the end."

The duel then became inevitable; the terms were arranged in the course
of the day, and the meeting, with pistols, was appointed for the day
after. On the ground Monsieur Dorlange was perfectly cool. When the
first fire was exchanged without result, the seconds proposed to put an
end to the affair.

"No, one more shot!" he said gaily, as if he were shooting in a
pistol-gallery.

This time he was shot in the fleshy part of the thigh, not a dangerous
wound, but one which caused him to lose a great deal of blood. As they
carried him to the carriage which brought him, Monsieur de Rhetore, who
hastened to assist them, being close beside him, he said, aloud:--

"This does not prevent Marie-Gaston from being a man of honor and a
heart of gold."

Then he fainted.

This duel, as you can well believe, has made a great commotion; Monsieur
Dorlange has been the hero of the hour for the last two days; it is
impossible to enter a single salon without finding him the one topic
of conversation. I heard more, perhaps, in the salon of Madame de
Montcornet than elsewhere. She receives, as you know, many artists and
men of letters, and to give you an idea of the manner in which your
friend is considered, I need only stenograph a conversation at which I
was present in the countess's salon last evening.

The chief talkers were Emile Blondet of the "Debats," and Monsieur
Bixiou, the caricaturist, one of the best-informed _ferrets_ of Paris.
They are both, I think, acquaintances of yours, but, at any rate, I
am certain of your intimacy with Joseph Bridau, our great painter, who
shared in the talk, for I well remember that he and Daniel d'Arthez were
the witnesses of your marriage.

"The first appearance of Dorlange in art," Joseph Bridau was saying,
when I joined them, "was fine; the makings of a master were already so
apparent in the work he did for his examinations that the Academy, under
pressure of opinion, decided to crown him--though he laughed a good deal
at its programme."

"True," said Bixiou, "and that 'Pandora' he exhibited in 1837, after his
return from Rome, is also a very remarkable figure. But as she won him,
at once, the cross and any number of commissions from the government and
the municipality, together with scores of flourishing articles in
the newspapers, I don't see how he can rise any higher after all that
success."

"That," said Blondet, "is a regular Bixi