The other was silent.

“I feel that you are right,” he said, at last, “but, indeed, it is hard that I should not be able to avenge this outrage upon the lady who is to be my wife.  I may tell you that, as soon as we return home, our formal betrothal is to take place, and ere long our marriage will be celebrated; but I shall feel lowered, in my own esteem, if I sit down quietly under this injury.”

“I do not see that,” Desmond said.  “If you abstain from challenging de Tulle, it is from no fear of the consequences, but it is, as I have shown you, because, whatever the issue of the contest, it would be bad both for you and her.  If you were killed, her life would be spoilt.  If you killed him, you might languish for years in one of the royal prisons.  The king prides himself on his justice, and, by all accounts, rightly so; and I am sure that he would feel the deepest resentment, were you or anyone to show, by your actions, that you considered he has favoured the transgressor.”

“You are right, Desmond; and, at any rate for the present, I will put my intention aside; but should he ever cross my path, assuredly I will have a reckoning with him.

“But how is it that you, who are at least eight years younger than I am, should argue as an old counsellor rather than a young ensign?”

“I suppose, in the first place, it is from my bringing up.  I lived with and was educated by a good priest, one not wanting in manliness and energy, but who often deplored the system of duelling, which is as strong with us as it is here, and denounced it as a relic of barbarism, and, at any rate, never to be put in use on account of a heated quarrel over wine, but only if some deadly injury had been inflicted, and even then better left alone.  Of course, as an officer in one of His Majesty’s regiments, I should be obliged to conform to the general usage; for, did I decline, I should be regarded as having brought dishonour on the corps.  But my case differs altogether from yours.

“In the next place, knowing you were coming to Versailles, I thought over what course you would be likely to pursue, and considered it was probable you would lose no time in challenging de Tulle.  I have thought the matter over, in every light, and made up my mind to endeavour to dissuade you from doing so, if the opportunity offered.

“So you see,” he added with a smile, “I had prepared my array of arguments against it; and I cannot but think that the opinion of one interested, but not vitally so, on a point, is rather to be taken than that of a person smarting under an injury.”

“And now, to turn to other matters.  In three days we start for the south.  The baron accompanied me here, and went to see your colonel, while I came to your quarters.  His object was to ask him to grant you a month’s leave of absence, with the provision, of course, that you should return at once, if the regiment was ordered on service.”