Thanks to the close imitation of Parisian society at New Orleans, to which I had enjoyed the _entree_, I managed to conduct my unwilling partner to the table with a _haut ton_ that brought an uplift in the brows of more than one of my fellow guests. My elation over this success was short-lived. Colonel Burr adroitly placed himself on her other hand, and for a time I saw no more of her scarlet lips and dusky eyes. Both were given freely to the Colonel, whose reputation was only too well known. I might have sought to console myself with the rareness of the wines and the epicurean delicacy of the food. The service was simple, yet refined, the cooking such that I at once recognized the art of a Frenchman. Yet even the Madeira failed to cheer me. I could only sit silent over my plate and steal lackadaisical glances at the rounded shoulder which my partner so cruelly turned upon me, and at the silky maze of sable hair which crowned her shapely head. Until now my feeling toward Colonel Burr had been uncertain, vaguely doubtful, yet by no means hostile. It now hardened of a sudden into deep-seated aversion. So little has reason to do with the affairs of men--and women! To show the depth of resentment into which my passion flung me, I need only say that I conned over in my memory the fatal meeting between Mr. Burr and Mr. Hamilton, and exulted that I might be able to avenge the great Federalist and myself at the same time by challenging the Colonel to a like encounter. For all his sinister reputation as a duellist, at that moment I would gladly have met him with any weapons he might choose. Either because of my look, or, what was the more probable, because of his well-known aversion to a divided conversation at table, Mr. Jefferson broke in upon the Colonel's _tete-a-tete_ with so shrewd a question regarding the Louisiana situation that Mr. Burr was required to answer at some length. This fresh turn of the conversation the President, with seeming ingenuousness, deflected to me, so that, from being the one silent member of the party, I found myself most unexpectedly the main speaker and the centre of attention. By keeping well within the bounds of my certain information, I was able to hold my own in the general discussion which followed, and to reply to all questions with a fair degree of fluency, although subjected by each of the gentlemen in turn to a cross-examination as keen and pointed as it was lightly uttered. "And your opinion of the Spanish boundaries?" asked Mr. Madison at last. It was a question which I had expected from the first,--the question of all questions among my fellow-denizens of Louisiana Territory. "We have him there!" said Colonel Burr, as I paused over my reply.