Her matchless eyes flashed an angry glance, and the faint smile on my lips must have tried her temper sorely.
"What did you do to deserve this affection?"
"A mere nothing--I killed a man," I answered coolly. "Or, at least, I left him started on the road to--Paradise."
The little flaxen-haired doll uttered a cry of horror, and covered her face with her small white hands. My inquisitor, however, sat rigid and unaffected. My answer had confirmed her suspicions.
"Why did you kill him?"
"Ma foi!" I replied, encouraging her thoughts, "because he sought to kill me."
"Ah! And why did he seek to kill you?"
"Because I disturbed him at dinner."
"Have a care how you trifle, sir!" she retorted, her eyes kindling again.
"Upon my honour, 't was no more than that. I pulled the cloth from the table whilst he ate. He was a quick-tempered gentleman, and my playfulness offended him. That is all."
Doubt appeared in her eyes, and it may have entered her mind that perchance her judgment had been over-hasty.
"Do you mean, sir, that you provoked a duel?"
"Alas, Madame! It had become necessary. You see, M. de Canaples--"
"Who?" Her voice rang sharp as the crack of a pistol.
"Eh? M. de Canaples."
"Was it he whom you killed?"
From her tone, and the eager, strained expression of her face, it was not difficult to read that some mighty interest of hers was involved in my reply. It needed not the low moan that burst from her companion to tell me so.
"As I have said, Madame, it is possible that he is not dead--nay, even that he will not die. For the rest, since you ask the question, my opponent was, indeed, M. de Canaples--Eugène de Canaples."
Her face went deadly white, and she sank back in her seat as if every nerve in her body had of a sudden been bereft of power, whilst she of the fair hair burst into tears.
A pretty position was this for me!--luckily it endured not. The girl roused herself from her momentary weakness, and, seizing the cord, she tugged it violently. The coach drew up.
"Alight, sir," she hissed--"go! I wish to Heaven that I had left you to the vengeance of the people."
Not so did I; nevertheless, as I alighted: "I am sorry, Madame, that you did not," I answered. "Adieu!"
The coach moved away, and I was left standing at the corner of the Rue St. Honoré and the Rue des Bons Enfants, in the sorriest frame of mind conceivable. The lady in the coach had saved my life, and for that I was more grateful perchance than my life was worth. Out of gratitude sprang a regret for the pain that I had undoubtedly caused her, and the sorrow which it might have been my fate to cast over her life.