How Blunt had got enough information to base that atrocious calumny upon, Monsieur George couldn’t imagine.  But there it was.  He kept silent in his indignation till his friend murmured, “I expect you will want him to know that you are here.”

“Yes,” said Monsieur George, “and I hope you will consent to act for me altogether.  First of all, pray, let him know by wire that I am waiting for him.  This will be enough to fetch him down here, I can assure you.  You may ask him also to bring two friends with him.  I don’t intend this to be an affair for Parisian journalists to write paragraphs about.”

“Yes.  That sort of thing must be stopped at once,” the other admitted.  He assented to Monsieur George’s request that the meeting should be arranged for at his elder brother’s country place where the family stayed very seldom.  There was a most convenient walled garden there.  And then Monsieur George caught his train promising to be back on the fourth day and leaving all further arrangements to his friend.  He prided himself on his impenetrability before Dona Rita; on the happiness without a shadow of those four days.  However, Dona Rita must have had the intuition of there being something in the wind, because on the evening of the very same day on which he left her again on some pretence or other, she was already ensconced in the house in the street of the Consuls, with the trustworthy Rose scouting all over the town to gain information.

Of the proceedings in the walled garden there is no need to speak in detail.  They were conventionally correct, but an earnestness of purpose which could be felt in the very air lifted the business above the common run of affairs of honour.  One bit of byplay unnoticed by the seconds, very busy for the moment with their arrangements, must be mentioned.  Disregarding the severe rules of conduct in such cases Monsieur George approached his adversary and addressed him directly.

“Captain Blunt,” he said, “the result of this meeting may go against me.  In that case you will recognize publicly that you were wrong.  For you are wrong and you know it.  May I trust your honour?”

In answer to that appeal Captain Blunt, always correct, didn’t open his lips but only made a little bow.  For the rest he was perfectly ruthless.  If he was utterly incapable of being carried away by love there was nothing equivocal about his jealousy.  Such psychology is not very rare and really from the point of view of the combat itself one cannot very well blame him.  What happened was this.  Monsieur George fired on the word and, whether luck or skill, managed to hit Captain Blunt in the upper part of the arm which was holding the pistol.  That gentleman’s arm dropped powerless by his side.  But he did not drop his weapon.  There was nothing equivocal about his determination.  With the greatest deliberation he reached with his left hand for his pistol and taking careful aim shot