, we----"

"Be quiet, sir," she commanded, turning beautifully pink and giving me
ten thousand messages in a single look.

"Then come on," Tommy said, beginning to draw her away by the hand,
"let's go off and think up another!"

"My boy Tommy," the professor sternly reproved him, "she is of royal
blood!"

"You said something that time," he imperturbably replied. "Come on,
Princess!" And laughingly she went with him.

"_Pardieu_," the old fellow pulled at his beard, "that sex is like a
cyclone--the nearer I get the faster I am twisted! But just as her
mother was at that age--yes, quite!" He sighed.

"Is she going back with you?" I asked, feeling a malicious joy in the
question after the last look she gave me.

"_Certainement_, there is no other way! Thus far I have not tried to
persuade her, but merely presented a few minor facts. Yes, she will go."

I confess that my malicious joy sank somewhat.

"You are a gentleman," he continued, "and that presupposes a delicate
sense of honor. I know how you feel toward her--yet would you have her
remain with you if she one day regretted it? Great things rest on her
return, I assure you. Let us start even! You have had two days to
persuade her your way; let me have two days to persuade her mine! After
that, we fight in the open--you and I!"

There was something straightforward in his appeal that impressed me. I
had had two days, and it would be giving her destiny, those great things
he spoke of, a square deal to comply. I had misgivings, of course, but
these were overruled by--why deny it?--the masculine conceit that
becomes assertive after a few feminine favors. At any rate, it was a
fair sporting proposition, and I said:

"All right, for two days--provided I explain to her how we made this
bargain."

He smiled and hugged me as of yore, crying:

"Almost you would make me sorry when I win! So we fight to the last
ditch, eh?"

"To the last ditch," I smiled, shaking hands with him.

But hardly had the agreement been sealed before I regretted it. Tommy's
dissertation on sacrifice worried me. And yet, what man with red blood
and two wide-open eyes in his heart would have refused to play the cards
Monsieur thus honestly laid out? It would be unfair to Doloria's future
if I pugnaciously held to the advantage these few days had brought; for
it is one thing to start in an open race with men, and run and burst
your heart to be first across the goal which means a woman's ar