“Granted that there was a fatality of this sort in your conduct,” responded Varhely, coldly, “and that your lackey did not understand your commands:  the deed which you committed was none the less that of a coward.  You used as a weapon the letters of a woman, and of a woman whom you had deceived by promising her your name when it was no longer yours to give!”

“Are you here to defend Mademoiselle Marsa Laszlo?” asked Michel, a trifle haughtily.

“I am here to defend the Princess Zilah, and to avenge Prince Andras.  I am here, above all, to demand satisfaction for your atrocious action in having taken me as the instrument of your villainy.”

“I regret it deeply and sincerely,” replied Menko; “and I am at your orders.”

The tone of this response admitted of no reply, and Yanski and Valla took their departure.

Valla then obtained another second from the Hungarian embassy, and two officers in garrison at Florence consented to serve as Menko’s friends.  It was arranged that the duel should take place in a field near Pistoja.

Valla, anxious and uneasy, said to Varhely: 

“All this is right and proper, but—­”

“But what?”

“But suppose he kills you?  The right is the right, I know; but leaden bullets are not necessarily on the side of the right, and—­”

“Well,” interrupted Yanski, “in case of the worst, you must charge yourself, my dear Valla, with informing the Prince how his old friend Yanski Varhely defended his honor—­and also tell him of the place where Count Menko may be found.  I am going to attempt to avenge Zilah.  If I do not succeed, ’Teremtete’!” ripping out the Hungarian oath, “he will avenge me, that is all!  Let us go to supper.”

CHAPTER XXXI

“If Menko were dead!”

Prince Zilah, wandering solitary in the midst of crowded Paris, was possessed by one thought, one image impossible to drive away, one name which murmured eternally in his ears—­Marsa; Marsa, who was constantly before his eyes, sometimes in the silvery shimmer of her bridal robes, and sometimes with the deathly pallor of the promenader in the garden of Vaugirard; Marsa, who had taken possession of his being, filling his whole heart, and, despite his revolt, gradually overpowering all other memories, all other passions!  Marsa, his last love, since nothing was before him save the years when the hair whitens, and when life weighs heavily upon weary humanity; and not only his last love, but his only love!

Oh! why had he loved her?  Or, having loved her, why had she not confessed to him that that coward of a Menko had deceived her!  Who knows?  He might have pardoned her, perhaps, and accepted the young girl, the widow of that passion.  Widow?  No, not while Menko lived.  Oh! if he were dead!

And Zilah repeated, with a fierce longing for vengeance:  “If he were dead!” That is, if there were not between them, Zilah and Marsa, the abhorred memory of the lover!