And with these words he seized the unhappy Roman cab-driver by the collar of his coat, and flung him towards Fontenelle, who took not the slightest notice of him as he lay huddled up and wailing on the grass, but merely stood his ground, silently waiting.  Mademoiselle Jeanne Richaud however was not so easily disposed of.  Throwing herself on the cold ground, thick with the dust of dead Caesars, she clung to Miraudin, pouring out a torrent of vociferous French, largely intermixed with a special slang of the Paris streets, and broken by the hysterical yells when she saw her “protector” throw off his coat, and, standing in his shirt-sleeves, take close observation of the pistol he held.

“Is this your care of me?” she cried, “Mon Dieu!  What a thing is a man!  Here am I alone in a strange country—­and you endanger your life for some quarrel of which I know nothing,—­yet you pretend to love me!  Nom de Jesus!  What is your love!”

“You do well to ask,” said Miraudin, laughing carelessly, “What is my love!  A passing fancy, chere petite!  We actors simulate love too well to ever feel it!  Out of the way, jou-jou!  Your life will be amusing so long as you keep a little beaute de diable.  After that—­ the lodging-house!”

He pushed her aside, but she still clung pertinaciously to his arm.

“Victor!  Victor!” she wailed, “Will you not look at me—­will you not kiss me!”

Miraudin wheeled round, and stared at her amazed.

“Kiss you!” he echoed, “Pardieu!  Would you care!  Jeanne!  Jeanne!  You are a little mad,—­the moonlight is too much for you!  To-morrow I will kiss you, when the sun rises—­or if I am not here—­why, somebody else will!”

“Who is the woman you are fighting for?” she suddenly demanded, springing up from her crouching position with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes.  Miraudin looked at her with nonchalant admiration.

“I wish you would have looked like that sometimes on my stage,” he said, “You would have brought down the house!  ‘Woman!’ No ‘woman’ at all, but women!  The glamour of them—­the witchery of them—­women!—­ the madness of them!  Women!—­The one woman saves when the one woman exists, but then,—­we generally kill her!  Now, once more, Jeanne,—­ out of the way!  Time flies, and Monsieur le Marquis is in haste.  He has many fashionable engagements!”

He flashed upon her a look from the bright amorous hazel eyes, that were potent to command and difficult to resist, and she cowered back, trembling and sobbing hysterically as the Marquis advanced.

“You are ready?” he enquired civilly.

“Ready!”

“Shall we say twelve paces?”

“Excellent!”