We went on playing.  My luck deserted me; I lost, and lost, and lost again.  From time to time I looked round at the card table.  The “deal” had fallen early to the General, and it seemed to be indefinitely prolonged.  A heap of notes and gold (won mainly from Romayne, as I afterward discovered) lay before him.  As for my neighbor, the unhappy possessor of the bottles of blacking, the pictures by unknown masters, and the rest of it, he won, and then rashly presumed on his good fortune.  Deprived of his last farthing, he retired into a corner of the room, and consoled himself with a cigar.  I had just arisen, to follow his example, when a furious uproar burst out at the card table.

I saw Romayne spring up, and snatch the cards out of the General’s hand.  “You scoundrel!” he shouted, “you are cheating!” The General started to his feet in a fury.  “You lie!” he cried.  I attempted to interfere, but Romayne had already seen the necessity of controlling himself.  “A gentleman doesn’t accept an insult from a swindler,” he said, coolly.  “Accept this, then!” the General answered—­and spat on him.  In an instant Romayne knocked him down.

The blow was dealt straight between his eyes:  he was a gross big-boned man, and he fell heavily.  For the time he was stunned.  The women ran, screaming, out of the room.  The peaceable Commander trembled from head to foot.  Two of the men present, who, to give them their due, were no cowards, locked the doors.  “You don’t go,” they said, “till we see whether he recovers or not.”  Cold water, assisted by the landlady’s smelling salts, brought the General to his senses after a while.  He whispered something to one of his friends, who immediately turned to me.  “The General challenges Mr. Romayne,” he said.  “As one of his seconds, I demand an appointment for to-morrow morning.”  I refused to make any appointment unless the doors were first unlocked, and we were left free to depart.  “Our carriage is waiting outside,” I added.  “If it returns to the hotel without us, there will be an inquiry.”  This latter consideration had its effect.  On their side, the doors were opened.  On our side, the appointment was made.  We left the house.

IV.

In consenting to receive the General’s representative, it is needless to say that I merely desired to avoid provoking another quarrel.  If those persons were really impudent enough to call at the hotel, I had arranged to threaten them with the interference of the police, and so to put an end to the matter.  Romayne expressed no opinion on the subject, one way or the other.  His conduct inspired me with a feeling of uneasiness.  The filthy insult of which he had been made the object seemed to be rankling in his mind.  He went away thoughtfully to his own room.  “Have you nothing to say to me?” I asked.  He only answered:  “Wait till to-morrow.”

The next day the seconds appeared.