This digression has all grown out of my unwillingness to mention what mention I must,--that I passed my night at the little inn on the table where we supped. I had not courage to assert the right to my bed in the Count's room; and so I wrapped myself in my cloak, and with my carpetbag for a pillow, tried to sleep. It was no use; the most elastic spring-mattress and a down cushion would have failed that night to lull me! I was outraged beyond endurance: _she_ had slighted, _he_ had insulted me! Such a provocation as he gave me could have but one expiation. He could not, by any pretext, refuse me satisfaction. But was I as ready to ask it? Was it so very certain that I would insist upon this reparation? He was certain to wound, he might kill me! I believe I cried over that thought. To be cut off in the bud of one's youth, in the very spring-time of one's enjoyment,--I could not say of one's utility,--to go down unnoticed to the grave, never appreciated, never understood, with vulgar and mistaken judgments upon one's character and motives! I thought my heart would burst with the affliction of such a picture, and I said, “No, Potts, live; and reply to such would-be slanderers by the exercise of the qualities of your great nature.” Numberless beautiful little episodes came thronging to my memory of good men, men whose personal gallantry had won them a world-wide renown, refusing to fight a duel. “We are to storm the citadel to-morrow, Colonel,” said one; “let us see which of us will be first up the breach.” How I loved that fellow for his speech; and I tortured my mind how, as there was no citadel to be carried by assault, I could apply its wisdom to my own case. What if I were to say, “Count, the world is before us,--a world full of trials and troubles. With the common fortune of humanity, we are certain each of us to have our share. What if we meet on this spot, say ten years hence, and see who has best acquitted himself in the conflict?” I wonder what he would say. The Germans are a strange, imaginative, dreamy sort of folk. Is it not likely that he would be struck by a notion so undeniably original? Is it not probable that he would seize my hand with rapture, and say, “Ja! I agree”? Still, it is possible that he might not; he might be one of those vulgar matter-of-fact creatures who will regard nothing through the tinted glass of fancy; he might ridicule the project, and tell it at breakfast as a joke. I felt almost smothered as this notion crossed me.