Arnold tried to loosen Nora’s grasp upon his arm. "I must get him out of this somehow," he whispered. "They are trying to force him into a duel." Miles, however, gave him no time to interfere. "What the devil do you mean?" he demanded. The officer shrugged his shoulders. "You felt yourself wounded in your honour and have avenged yourself by insulting this officer here. That can have but one meaning." "I swear I don’t know what you are talking about!" "There are certain injuries for which there is but one remedy," was the cold explanation. A light seemed to dawn over Miles’s scarlet face. He burst into a high, wavering laugh. "You think I am going to fight a duel? You think I’m going to make such a d——d fool of myself?" he demanded thickly. The officers looked at each other in contemptuous silence. Bauer smiled and turned aside, as though to spare himself the sight of so profound a humiliation. Captain von Ebberstein alone retained his expression of profound gravity. "A gentleman is expected to give satisfaction," he said. "I don’t care what you expect," was Miles’s retort. "I’ll have nothing to do with such infernal nonsense. He lied, and I choked the lie down his throat, and there’s an end to the matter!" "On the contrary, it is the beginning." "I think differently." Bauer advanced. He was swinging his white kid glove carelessly backwards and forwards, and there was the same scornful smile about his lips. At the same moment his eyes fell on Nora’s face, and the smile deepened with malicious satisfaction. "In that case, it is my duty to inform you that you are neither a gentleman nor a man of honour," he said. "As such, and as a coward, you will feel no objection to my expressing my feelings—thus!" He flung the glove full into Miles’s face. There was a moment of expectant silence. Miles appeared to ignore what had happened. The temporary excitement was over, and the wine was beginning to numb his senses with the first touch of drowsiness. It was Arnold’s opportunity. He pushed through the little circle and took Miles firmly by the arm. "Let me pass!" he said to those about him. "This gentleman is my friend." Miles yielded passively, and no one made any effort to detain him. The group fell back on either side, as they would have done from people infected with disease, and Arnold guided the wavering Miles across the ballroom. The floor was empty, and Nora felt she must sink beneath the hundreds of eyes that watched them. Yet she carried herself haughtily, and the one thought that flashed clearly through her mind, as the great glass doors swung behind her, was that she was free—that, come what would, she could never see those people again. The last possibility of her existence amongst them was destroyed. Further than that she refused to think.