Lying or half-reclining on a divan, with a rummer of raki and water at hand, a cigar between his lips, and his cunning almond-shaped eyes half-closed, though they glittered brightly, Guebhard, after some remarks about Margarita and her singing, to all of which Cecil listened silently, said: 'She is a dazzling girl--don't you think so?' Cordially, Cecil admitted she was so. 'I wonder blood has not been shed about her long ere this!' he exclaimed, in a curiously suave yet vicious tone. 'Bah!' said Cecil, 'people don't fight duels nowadays.' 'In your cold-blooded country, perhaps,' was the quietly scornful interruption. 'And we shall have daily blood enough spilt in other ways,' continued Cecil, without heeding him. Guebhard drained his rummer, refilled it, and was not long in thinking of something else offensive to say, and gave each long, black, lanky moustache a vigorous twist, as if he gathered courage from the performance. 'You have not been idle while here, apparently, Herr Lieutenant,' said he, with one of his curious smiles, while carefully selecting a cigar from his case and proffering Cecil one. 'I do not understand you, Captain Guebhard,' replied the latter. 'You will understand this, that I heard your names--yours and Margarita's--bandied about in the common _cafane_ of the next village.' Cecil coloured with anger, but said quietly: 'We are not accountable for the gossip of the vulgar or the ignorant.' 'It is a pity, however, to compromise a young lady by your attentions, Herr Lieutenant.' 'Who _do_ you mean?' asked Cecil, angrily. 'Who but Margarita Palenka?' replied Guebhard, suavely, but decidedly, emitting great circles of smoke from his lips. 'Compromise her?' 'I have said so, Herr.' 'With whom?' asked Cecil, endeavouring to suppress his annoyance; 'her mother or--you? I am here, like yourself, as a guest, and I do not recognise your right, Captain Guebhard, either to advise me, or suggest to me any line of conduct.' 'If I attempted to do so, it would be as your friend, and still more as the friend of Count Palenka's sister.' Guebhard's voice was becoming thick under the influence of the fiery raki, and he sat for half-a-minute glaring at Cecil in a curious half-defiant and half-stolid manner, especially when the latter was not looking at him. 'At all events,' he said bluntly, 'General Tchernaieff expects you to report yourself in due course at Alexinatz.' 'Did he send you to me with this message?' 'No.' 'Then I require no advice from you, sir, as to any course I may choose to adopt.' Guebhard's eyes glittered like those of a rattlesnake beneath their half-closed lids, and Cecil began to eye him back steadily and sternly. 'Captain Guebhard,' said he, 'to recur to the first matter in hand, the rumours at the _cafane_, what is your peculiar interest in the matter?' 'What matter?' stammered Guebhard. 'My intimacy--friendship--what you will, with the sister of Count Palenka?'