y this siren, I made my proposals to
her to-night. _Ventre St. Gris_! I had engaged to settle with my
creditors out of her marriage portion."

"Go on--go on--this is excellent, St. Prix."

"Well, sir, she rejected me--me, the Count de St. Prix. A prior
engagement, forsooth! I wish to Heaven I knew the fellow! Before
sunrise he should have more button holes in his doublet than ever his
tailor made."

"Captain St. Prix," replied Henri, "you have not far to look. In me
behold the fortunate suitor. Come, come; confess that your pride, and
not your heart, was engaged in the affair. The game was fairly played;
the stakes are mine."

"This trifling will not pass muster with me, sir," said the count,
sternly. "Know--if you knew it not before--that Raoul de St. Prix
never fixed his eye on a prize that he did not obtain, or missing it,
failed to punish his successful rival. You are a soldier, and you
understand me, sir," he added, touching his sword knot with his gloved
hand.

"This is midsummer madness, Raoul," answered Henri, with good temper.
"Had I been unsuccessful, painful, fatal as the disappointment would
have been, I should have resigned the lady to you without a struggle."

"That shows the difference between a gentleman and a _parvenu_,"
retorted St. Prix.

"A _parvenu_!" cried De Grandville, starting to his feet.

"Yes. Who knows you? Whence came you? You are an intruder in our
ranks."

"I bear the king's commission."

"Yes, and have not courage enough to sustain it. I have defied you to
your teeth, and you refuse to fight."

"My principles are opposed to duelling. In the words of the lady whose
preference honors me, 'I honor the soldier as much as I detest the
duellist.' Besides, has not the marshal strictly forbidden duels in
the camp? Conscience, reason, authority, every consideration forbids
my acceptance of the challenge."

"Then," said St. Prix, "you shall submit to an indignity that
disgraces a French gentleman forever." And raising his sheathed sword,
he struck De Grandville with the flat of the scabbard.

Henri's sword instantly flashed in the lamplight, and St. Prix drawing
his rapier, they were instantly engaged in deadly combat. Both were
expert swordsmen, and while one fought with the ferocity of hatred and
disappointment, the arm of the other was nerved by a sense of wrong.
The metallic ring of their blades was unintermitted, for neither
paused to take breath, but, with teeth set and eye