Monsieur the brother, having no further anxiety concerning his sister, resumed the dialogue, and said to me in the sweetest of tones:--"It is not absolutely indispensable for us to cut each other's throats on the spot; that is an extreme method to which there is always time to resort.--Listen:--The game is not equal between us. You are very young and much less strong than I; if we should fight, I should kill you or maim you at the very least--and I am not anxious either to kill or disfigure you--it would be a great pity; Rosette, who is down there under the clothes and hasn't a word to say, would bear me a grudge for it all her life; for she is as unforgiving and wicked as a tigress when she puts her mind to it, the dear little dove. You, who are her Prince Galaor and receive only sweet words from her, know nothing about that; but it isn't pleasant. Rosette is free, so are you; it seems that you are not irreconcilable enemies; her widowhood is at an end and the thing turns out as well as possible. Marry her; she will not need to go back to her own room to sleep, and in that way, you see, I shall be relieved of the necessity of taking you for a sheath for my sword, which would be agreeable to neither of us;--what do you say?" I must have made a horrible grimace, for what he proposed was of all things in the world the most impossible of execution by me; I would rather have crawled on all fours on the ceiling like the flies, or have unhooked the sun from the sky without taking anything to stand on, than do what he asked me, and yet the last proposition was incontestably more agreeable than the first. He seemed surprised that I did not accept with transports of delight, and he repeated what he had said, as if to give me time to reply. "An alliance with you would be most honorable for me, and I should never have dared to aspire to it; I know that it is an unheard-of good fortune for a young man who has as yet no position or footing in society, and that the most illustrious men would esteem themselves very fortunate;--but I can only persist in my refusal, and as I am free to choose between marriage and a duel, I prefer the duel.--It is a strange choice, and one which few people would make--but it is mine." At that point Rosette uttered the most heart-broken sigh you can imagine, put her head out from behind the pillow, and instantly drew it back again, like a snail when you strike its horns, when she saw my impassive and determined countenance.