Starbuck compressed his pale lips, and his mouth worked violently. “Don’t you talk of my sister,” said he. “Naw,” said Simpson, “we ain’t to talk of your fine sister; and yet we all know that you’re livin’ here on what she makes outside--Eh?” For Starbuck had thrown himself upon him with an open knife; and driven the blade well into his side. Simpson fell, and the others, clasping Starbuck by the body, sought to drag him away; but his right arm still was disengaged, clenching the open blade, and with it he was sawing viciously at Simpson’s wrist. Starbuck was the weakest man of all; but when he was at last torn away, the other’s cries had ceased, and he was lying huddled in the pool of blood, with a hiccough in his pallid throat. Starbuck stood looking at him, panting; while the others bent over him, and tried to lift him to the bed. “You’ll swing for this night’s work, Jem Starbuck,” said one. “I think not,” said another. “The first dig didn’t go very deep; and these flesh-wounds ain’t no account. Get away from here, Jem, before the cops get wind of it.” And they pushed James Starbuck roughly, but with hands still friendly, out into the winter’s night. But it is after eleven o’clock; and now we must hurry, if we would be in time for the ball. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE DUVAL BALL, CONCLUDED. The carriage had been in waiting some half an hour; the coachman, who could not leave his horses, was swearing upon the box, while the footman sought the shelter of the area door; the deep snow which had begun the afternoon still lay heaped in chance places, while the rain, descending in straight lines, made scattered pools of slush and water, visible when they happened to reflect the wet shining of the corner lamp-post, at other times a perilous pit for horses’ steps and men’s. * * * * * But Flossie sat still in the rose light of her own and inmost room: her husband was away, and her quilted _sortie de bal_ lay ready on the lounge beside her. Not softer it than her white shoulders; and even in the face their owner looked marvellously young for her age. She rose and drew the satin cloak around her; it was of the very faintest, palest, wood-bud green, making strange harmony with her ashen hair; and she walked to the window and looked out into the inhospitable night. Then--and without the final glance at the mirror that all women are said to give--she rang the bell, and followed by her maid went down the stairs alone. The indoor servants, with huge umbrellas, helped her to the carriage--so silly was it, as Flossie had always told her husband, for the house to have no _porte-cochère_--and the carriage lurched off, through the heaps of yet white snow, careening and sinking in the pools of rain.