arty looks to
him, my party looks to me. Never need you fear that I shall be at sword
or pistol with any one. I will challenge my man, whoever he as that
needs a lesson, to touch buttons on a waistcoat with the button on the
foil, or drill fiver and eights in cards at twenty paces: but I will not
fight him though he offend me, for I am stronger than my temper, and as
I do not want to take his nip of life, and judge it to be of less value
than mine, the imperilling of either is an absurdity.'

'Oh! because I know you are incapable of craven fear,' cried Clotilde,
answering aloud the question within herself of why she so much admired,
why she so fondly loved him. To feel his courage backing his high
good sense was to repose in security, and her knowledge that an astute
self-control was behind his courage assured her he was invincible. It
seemed to her, therefore, as they walked side by side, and she saw
their triumphant pair of figures in her fancy, natural that she should
instantly take the step to prepare her for becoming his Republican
Princess. She walked an equal with the great of the earth, by virtue of
her being the mate of the greatest of the great; she trod on some, and
she thrilled gratefully to the man who sustained her and shielded her on
that eminence. Elect of the people he! and by a vaster power than kings
can summon through the trumpet! She could surely pass through the
trial with her parents that she might step to the place beside him! She
pressed his arm to be physically a sharer of his glory. Was it love? It
was as lofty a stretch as her nature could strain to.

She named the city on the shores of the great Swiss lake where her
parents were residing; she bade him follow her thither, and name the
hotel where he was to be found, the hour when he was to arrive. 'Am I
not precise as an office clerk?' she said, with a pleasant taste of the
reality her preciseness pictured.

'Practical as the head of a State department,' said he, in good faith.

'I shall not keep you waiting,' she resumed.

'The sooner we are together after the action opens the better for our
success, my golden crest!'

'Have no misgivings, Sigismund. You have transformed me. A spark of you
is in my blood. Come. I shall send word to your hotel when you are to
appear. But you will come, you will be there, I know. I know you so
entirely.'

'As a rule, Lutetia, women know no more than half of a man even when
they have married him. At lea