"I'm sorry you did not," said Carroll, coldly; "it would have been more polite." "Polite! D--n it, sir! I call this stealing." "Stealing, Mr. Prince, is a word that might be used by the person who claims these letters to describe the act of any one who would keep them from HER. It really can not apply to you or me." "Once for all, do you refuse to return them to me?" said Prince, pale with anger. "Decidedly." "Very well, sir! We shall see." He stepped to the corner and rang a bell. "I have summoned my manager, and will charge you with the theft in his presence." "I think not." "And why, sir?" "Because the presence of a third party would enable me to throw this glove in your face, which, as a gentleman, I couldn't do without witnesses." Steps were heard along the passage; Prince was no coward in a certain way; neither was he a fool. He knew that Carroll would keep his word; he knew that he should have to fight him; that, whatever the issue of the duel was, the cause of the quarrel would be known, and scarcely redound to his credit. At present there were no witnesses to the offered insult, and none would be wiser. The letters were not worth it. He stepped to the door, opened it, said, "No matter," and closed it again. He returned with an affectation of carelessness. "You are right. I don't know that I'm called upon to make a scene here which the LAW can do for me as well elsewhere. It will settle pretty quick whether you've got the right to those letters, and whether you've taken the right way to get them sir." "I have no desire to evade any responsibility in this matter, legal or otherwise," said Carroll, coldly, rising to his feet. "Look here," said Prince, suddenly, with a return of his brusque frankness; "you might have ASKED me for those letters, you know." "And you wouldn't have given them to me," said Carroll. Prince laughed. "That's so! I say, Captain. Did they teach you this sort of strategy at West Point?" "They taught me that I could neither receive nor give an insult under a white flag," said Carroll, pleasantly. "And they allowed me to make exchanges under the same rule. I picked up this pocket-book on the spot where the accident occurred to Dr. West. It is evidently his. I leave it with you, who are his executor." The instinct of reticence before a man with whom he could never be confidential kept him from alluding to his other discovery. Prince took the pocket-book, and opened it mechanically. After a moment's scrutiny of the memoranda it contained, his face assumed something of the same concentrated attention it wore at the beginning of the interview. Raising his eyes suddenly to Carroll, he said, quickly,-- "You have examined it?" "Only so far as to see that it contained nothing of importance to the person I represent," returned Carroll, simply. The capitalist looked at the young officer's clear eyes. Something of embarrassment came into his own as he turned them away.