He admitted that he had, and had come off second best. But it was a mere point of honor with a brother officer, and no life-and-death affair. “Then you are committed to the code? You think a challenged man should fight?” “I think a challenged gentleman will always fight,” he corrected. I hooked an arm over the back of my chair and looked him full in the face. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Castner--always for your own good, you will remember. Yesterday, about this time or a little later, I slapped a man’s face. He sent his friend to my friend, and this morning at daybreak, as I have reason to suppose, a party of three which should have been a party of four, met in a grassy cove on the riverside just below the town of Nyack. At that hour, or possibly a short time afterward, I was breakfasting very pleasantly here with you, as you will recall.” He was evidently shocked, as I meant him to be, and for a little while he was unable to find the fitting word. When he did find it, it was a most gentlemanly word, I had to admit. “You have your reasons for telling me this, Mr. Page, and you will pardon me if I say that they do not appear upon the surface. I will ask you one question--which you may answer or not, as it pleases you: Does Sir Henry Clinton know of this?” “I told him, as nearly as I can remember, in much the same words.” “Yet he condoned this--this----” “The poltroonery?” I cut in, helping him out. “Yes, in a way. But his way made a just and even-handed discrimination between a brave man and a coward. You will observe that he did not billet me with his own people; he turned me over to Mr. Benedict Arnold. Now will you give me the cold shoulder, Mr. Castner?” He took time to think about it, regarding me now a bit wistfully, I thought, and again, angrily. It was a test that a tried friend might have balked at, and he was only an acquaintance of a few hours. “You have neither the face nor the carriage of a coward,” he said at length, speaking slowly. “Moreover, you are from the South, where your kinsmen would brand you for a deed such as you have described. No, Mr. Page, I shall not cold-shoulder you, because I know very well that you have carefully kept back the key to your riddle. Some day you will think well enough of me to let me have it.” What could I do with this generous, noble-minded fellow who would not believe ill of me on my own word? There seemed to be nothing for it but to take him as he stood; to make the best of his abounding nobility of character and friendly loyalty. Yet it was now all the harder to deceive him and to play upon this very friendship, as I feared I might be obliged to. I have heard of those who are said to pray, sometimes, to be delivered from their friends, and I have always had a hot corner of despising saved for these cold-blooded ones. But now I found myself on the brink of saying the same unthankful prayer in my own behalf.