“Did he insult you, then?”

Again he stiffened.  “He insulted me—­yes.  And I, I struck him. Apres cela—­” again the expressive shrug, and no more.

“But how did he insult you?” persisted Chris.  “Couldn’t you have just turned your back, as one would in England?”

“No” Sternly he made reply.  “I could not—­turn my back.”

“It’s ever so much more dignified,” she maintained.

The dark eyes flashed.  “Pardon!” he said.  “There are some insults upon which no man, English or French, can with honour turn the back.”

That fired her curiosity.  “It was something pretty bad, then?  What was it, Bertie?  Tell me!”

“I cannot tell you,” he returned, quite courteously but with the utmost firmness.

She glanced at him again speculatively, then, with shrewdness:  “When men fight duels,” she said, “it’s generally over either politics or—­a woman.  Was it—­politics, Bertie?”

He stopped.  “It was not politics, Christine,” he said.

“Then—­” She paused, expectant.

His face contracted slightly.  “Yes, it was—­a woman.  But I say nothing more than that.  We will speak of it—­never again.”

But this was very far from satisfying Chris.  “Tell me at least about the woman,” she urged.  “Is it—­is it the girl you are going to marry?”

But he stood silent, looking at her again with that expression in his eyes that had puzzled her before.

“Is it, Bertie?” she insisted.

“And if I tell you Yes?” he said at last.

She made a queer little gesture, the merest butterfly movement, and yet it had in it the faintest suggestion of hurt surprise.

“And you never told me about her,” she said.

He leaned swiftly towards her.  There was a sudden glow on his olive face that made him wonderfully handsome. “Mignonne!” he said eagerly, and then as swiftly checked himself.  “Ah, no, I will not say it!  You do not love the French.”

“But I want to hear about your fiancee,” she protested.  “I can’t think why you haven’t told me.”

He had straightened himself again, and there was something rather mournful in his look.  “I have no fiancee, little one,” he said.

“No?” Chris smiled all over her sunny face.  She looked the merest child standing before him wrapped in the mackintosh that flapped about her bare ankles, the ruddy hair all loose about her back.  “Then whatever made you pretend you had?” she said.

He smiled back, half against his will, with the eloquent shrug that generally served him where speech was awkward.

“And the woman you fought about?” she continued relentlessly.

“Mademoiselle Christine,” he pleaded, “you ask of me the impossible.  You do not know what you ask.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Chris imperiously.  The matter had somehow become of the first importance, and she had every intention of gaining her end.  “It isn’t fair not to tell me now, unless,” with sudden doubt, “it’s somebody whose acquaintance you are ashamed of.”