“I couldn’t help it, Bertie!  Oh, Bertie, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, in an agony of contrition.

There was a very odd expression on Bertrand’s face.  She did not understand it in the least, but thought he must be furious since he was undoubtedly frowning.  If this were the case, however, he displayed admirable self-restraint, for he banished the frown almost immediately.

“Mademoiselle has been bathing, yes?” he questioned briskly.  “But it is a splendid morning for a swim.  And le bon Cinders also!  How he is droll, ce bon Cinders!”

He snapped his fingers airily under the droll one’s nose, and flashed his sudden smile into her face of distress.

“Eh bien!” he said. “L’affaire est finie.  Let us go.”

He stuck his weapon into the sand and left it there.  Then, without waiting to don his coat, he turned and walked away with her with his light, elastic swagger that speedily widened the distance between himself and his vanquished foe.

Chris walked beside him in silence, Cinders still tucked under her arm.  She knew not what to say, having no faintest clue to his real attitude towards her at that moment.  He had ignored her apology so jauntily that she could not venture to renew it.

She glanced at him after a little to ascertain whether smile or frown had supervened.  But both were gone.  He looked back at her gravely, though without reproof.

“Poor little one!” he said.  “It frightened you, no?”

She drew a deep breath.  “Oh, Bertie, what were you doing?”

“I was fighting,” he said.

“But why?  You might—­you might have killed him!  Perhaps you have!”

He stiffened slightly, and twisted one end of his small moustache.  “I think not,” he said, faint regret in his voice.

Chris thought not too, judging by the clamour of invective which the injured man had managed to pour forth.  But for some reason she pressed the point.

“But—­just imagine—­if you had!”

He shrugged his shoulders with extreme deliberation.

“Alors, Mademoiselle Christine, there would have been one canaille the less in the world.”

She was a little shocked at the cool rejoinder, yet could not somehow feel that her preux chevalier could be in the wrong.

“He might have killed you,” she remarked after a moment, determined to survey the matter from every standpoint.  “I am sure he meant to.”

He shrugged his shoulders again and laughed.  “That is quite possible.  And you would have been sorry—­a little—­no?”

She raised her clear eyes to his.  “You know I should have been heart-broken,” she said, with the utmost simplicity.

“But really?” he said.

“But really,” she repeated, breaking into a smile.  “Now do promise me that you will never fight that horrid man again.”

He spread out his hands.  “How can I promise you such a thing!  It is not the fashion in France to suffer insults in silence.”