She was silent for a moment, noting the look of admiration on my face. Then, quickly, and in little more than a whisper, she said: "I have answered your questions, though not admitting your right to ask them. Would you know how to gain that right?" "Tell me!" I said, my heart beating rapidly with elation. "Challenge M. de Noyard, and kill him!" I stared in astonishment. "Now you may know whether or not I love him," she added. "But, mademoiselle,--why--" "Ah, that is the one thing about which I must always refuse to be questioned! I ask you this service. Will you grant it?" "If he has given you offence," I said, "certainly I will seek him at once." "Not a word of me is to be said between you! He must not know that I have spoken to you." "But a man is not to be killed without reason." "A pretext is easily invented." "Certainly,--a pretext to hide the cause of a quarrel from the world. But the real cause ought to be known to both antagonists." "I shall not discuss what ought or ought not to be. I ask you, will you fight this man and try to kill him? I request nothing unusual,--men are killed every day in duels. You are a good swordsman; Bussy d'Amboise himself has said so. Come! will you do this?" She looked up at me with a slight frown of repressed petulance. "If you will assure me that he has affronted you, and permit me to let him know, privately, the cause of my quarrel." "Oh!" she exclaimed, with irritation, "must a lady give a hundred reasons when she requests a service of a gentleman?" "One sufficient reason, when it is a service like this." "Well, I shall give none. I desire his death,--few gentlemen would ask a further reason." "I had not thought you so cruel, mademoiselle, as to desire the death of any man." "God forbid that I should desire the death of any other man! So, monsieur, I must understand that you refuse to serve me in this?" Her contemptuous look made me sigh. "Can you not see, mademoiselle, that to resolve deliberately and secretly on a man's death, and with premeditation to create a pretext for a challenge, is little better than assassination?" "A fine excuse to avoid risking your life!" Again I had to endure a look of profound scorn from her. "Mademoiselle," I replied, patiently, "I would that you might see how ready I am to fight when an affront is given me or some one needs a defender." "Oh!" she said, with an ironical smile. "Then to show yourself a lion against De Noyard, you require only that he shall affront you, or that some one shall need a defender against him! Suppose that _I_ should ever be in such need?" "You know that in your defence I would fight an army." Her smile now lost its irony, and she assumed a look of conciliation, which I was both surprised and rejoiced to behold. "Well, monsieur, it is pleasant to know that, if you will not take the offensive for me, you will, at least, act readily on the defensive if the occasion comes."