Pour le pistolet, ma
main n'est pas encore percluse." He held it out, as steady and strong as
it was in the old days when it could sway the sabre from dawn to
twilight and never know weariness.
If the other persuaded himself that consideration for the invalid's
infirmities made him patient under the insult, his friends were less
romantically credulous: the stigma of that night cleaves to him still.
Brazen it out as he may, the hang-dog look remains, telling us that the
barriers have been at least once broken down which separate the man from
the serf. There would be, perhaps, less mischief abroad if slander were
always so promptly and amply avenged.
CHAPTER XXII.
Not long after the events here recorded came a time that we all remember
right well, when, without note of preparation, the war-trumpets sounded
from the east and the north; when Europe woke up, like a giant
refreshed, from the slumber of a forty years' peace, and took down
disused weapons from the wall, and donned a rusted armor. It was a time
rife with romantic episodes, and, as such seasons must ever be, fraught
with peril to the prudence of womankind.
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