It was Nora who had cried out. The insult had fallen on her brother and herself alike, and her voice shook with passionate indignation. Her husband turned to her. "The man who is not ready to risk his life for his sister’s honour _is_ a coward," he asserted deliberately. A gesture of protest escaped Arnold, who had hitherto remained silent and motionless. "You forget," he said. "In England we do not duel—it is not our custom." "No; you go to law and take money for your injured honour," was the coldly scornful answer. "That is the revenge of shopkeepers—not of gentlemen." The two men measured each other in painful electric silence, and as they stood there face to face, the contrast between them marked them as two great types of two great races. The thin, loosely built Englishman, with the long, gaunt features, confronted the German, whose broad shoulders and massive head seemed to make him taller than his opponent. Perhaps some vague notion of the conflict which they represented dawned in Nora’s mind. She looked from one to the other, terrified of the forces behind the masks of stern self-repression, and instinctively weighing them in a mental balance. For the first time in their married life she was afraid of her husband. It seemed to her that his height and breadth had increased in the last moments; there was something gigantic in the stature, and something bulldog, tenacious, and yet keenly alive, powerfully intellectual in the face, with its square chin and massive forehead. Compared with him, Arnold, tall and wiry though he was in reality, appeared enfeebled, almost fragile. If the two men had fallen upon each other in that moment—the very possibility sickened Nora’s heart with fear. She had seen Arnold’s hands clench themselves as Wolff’s scornful criticism had been uttered, and involuntarily she had taken a quick step forward as though to fling herself between them. But there was no need for interference. Both men possessed admirable self-control, and in that moment at least they respected each other. "We have our own opinions on these matters," Arnold said. "You have yours. Mr. Ingestre is an Englishman, and does not need to conform to your customs. He gave his opponent the lie, and has done all that he need do." "So you have said," Wolff returned calmly. "In my eyes, and in the eyes of my world, there is still much to be done. But that—as the one German here—concerns me alone." He turned to Miles, who was still seated, his face in his hands, apparently dozing. "Go to your room!" he commanded peremptorily. The tone of almost brutal authority acted like a goad on Nora’s tortured nerves. "You speak to my brother as though he were a dog!" she burst out. Wolff did not answer her. "Go to your room!" he repeated. Miles staggered to his feet and tottered across to the door. He seemed to be obeying the hypnotising power of Wolff’s voice, for his movements were those of a sleep-walker.