We fought a duel, and it is customary in a duel
for each to seek to kill the other."
"But why was this duel fought?" she cried, with some petulance.
"I fear me, Mademoiselle, that I may not answer you," I said, recalling the
exact motives, and thinking how futile appeared the quarrel which Eug?ne de
Canaples had sought with Andrea when viewed in the light of what had since
befallen.
"Was the quarrel of your seeking?"
"In a measure it was, Mademoiselle."
"In a measure!" she echoed. Then persisting, as women will--"Will you not
tell me what this measure was?"
"Tenez, Mademoiselle," I answered in despair; "I will tell you just so much
as I may. Your brother had occasion to be opposed to certain projects that
were being formed in Paris by persons high in power around a beardless boy.
Himself of too small importance to dare wage war against those powerful
ones who would have crushed him, your brother sought to gain his ends by
sending a challenge to this boy. The lad was high-spirited and consented
to meet M. de Canaples, by whom he would assuredly have been murdered--'t
is the only word, Mademoiselle--had I not intervened as I did.
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