“Yes,” replied Norman, “I have the same feeling,” and there was a great deal more on the very tippest tip of his tongue.  But Mae turned her face from him slightly; the moon stole softly behind the flimsiest little cloud that any one could have seen through, and he paused, silly fellow.  These slight withdrawals, that should have urged him on, deceived him.  He stopped, and then he remembered Mae’s past doings, her recklessness, her waywardness.  It was not time yet to speak what he had in his heart to say, and what quivered on his tongue.  So he only asked abruptly:  “You will go with me to-morrow night for one of your gayest frolics, will you not?  We will go down on the Corso for all the Mocoletti fun.  I am very anxious to be in another of your good times.”

“O, would you like it?” said Mae; “I am so glad.  I should delight in it.  It will be almost too good.”  She stopped abruptly again, and gave him a quick, soft glance, just as the moon rode triumphantly out from behind the filmy, flimsy veil, and shone full down on her eyes and hair.  It fell on a bright, round, glistening ball, tucked in among some half curls behind her ear.  “What is that?” asked Norman.

“That”—­Mae put up her hand and drew it out—­“that is my stiletto.  I forgot to give it back to Lisetta.  It is pretty, isn’t it?”

Norman took the long needle from her hand and looked at it.  “It is not as pretty as the flowered stiletto.  Why didn’t you get one of those?”

“Why, do you not know that those are not worn by free maidens?  They are one of the added glories of a matron.  I like my round, smooth ball a great deal better.  It means liberty.”  And she plunged the steel tremulously back into her hair.

“We had better go in now; this night air is bad for you.”  The moon blazed scornfully down on Norman Mann as he said this.  She had had a wide experience, and had rarely seen such a stupid, cowardly fellow, so she thought.  Yet, after all, Norman only acted in self-defense.  Here was a girl by his side who gloried, as it seemed to him, in her freedom, and that being so, he must get away as soon as possible from that window, that moon, and that little girl.

“Well, Norman,” cried Eric, advancing eagerly as they turned from the window, “when do you really suppose it will come off?”

“Suppose what will come off?” inquired Mae.

“O, I forgot you were here.  Well, don’t tell any one else.  Norman is to fight a duel.”

“To fight a duel—­and be killed?” gasped Mae.

“You have but a poor opinion of my powers,” laughed Norman, “although the German looked a veteran duellist from his scars.  His face was fairly embroidered or fancy-worked with red lines.  A sort of hem in his nose, and tucks and seams all over his cheeks.  Notice my knowledge in this line, Miss Mae.  You ought to be ashamed, Eric, to have spoken of it.”

“Isn’t it all a joke?” asked Mae, pushing her head out of the window again, to hide the sudden white terror in her face.  “I didn’t suppose Americans fought duels when they were off pleasuring.”  This sentence Mae meant to pass as a gay, light, easy speech, to prove that Norman Mann and a duel were not such a very dreadful combination to her feminine mind.