"I shall kill you for this!"
"Bah! I have fought more times than you have years to your counting," with good Yankee spirit. "But if you think I'll waste my time in fighting a duel with you, you're up the wrong tree."
"Go to the devil!"
"Not just at present; there's too much for me to do. But this is my advice to you: apply for a leave of absence and take the waters of Wiesbaden. They are good for choleric dispositions. Now, I return the compliment: go to the devil yourself, only choose a route that will not cross mine. That's all!"
Gretchen and the vintner had vanished. Carmichael agreed that it was the best thing for them to do. The vintner was no coward, but he was discreet. Somebody might ask questions. So Carmichael returned to the consulate, equally indifferent what the colonel did or where he went. Of the vintner he thought: "The hot-headed young fool, to risk his life like that!" He would see later what he meant in regard to Gretchen. Poor little goose-girl! They would find that there was one man interested enough in her welfare to stand by her. His hands yet stung from the contact of wood against steel, and his hair was damp at the edges. This was a bit of old war-times.
"Are you hurt, Excellency?" asked the clerk solicitously.
"Hurt?"
"Yes. I heard a woman scream and ran to the window. It was a good fight. But that fellow-ach! To run away and leave you, an outsider, to fight his battle!"
"He would have been sliced in two if I hadn't come to the front. A hop-pole isn't half bad. I'll bet that lady's man has a bad arm for some time to come. As for the vintner, he had good reasons for taking to his heels."
"Good reasons?" But there was a sly look in the clerk's eyes.
"No questions, if you please. And tell no one, mind, what has taken place."
"Very well, Excellency." And quietly the clerk returned to his table of figures. But later he intended to write a letter, unsigned, to his serene highness.
Carmichael, scowling, undertook to answer his mail, but not with any remarkable brilliancy or coherency.
And in this condition of mind Grumbach found him; Grumbach, accompanied by the old clock-mender from across the way, and a Gipsy Carmichael had never seen before.
"What's up, Hans?"
"Tell your clerk to leave us," said Grumbach, his face as barren of expression as a rock.
"Something serious, eh?" Carmichael dismissed the clerk, telling him to return after the noon hour. "Now, then," he said, "what is the trouble?"