The lady blushed and pulled the letter out of her pocket and held it up to the light, and it was, as Barty said, merely an empty envelope and a red seal. She then held it out to her husband and exclaimed: "Le cachet de Monsieur Josselin, que je lui avais demandé...!" So bloodshed was perhaps avoided, and Monsieur Jean took care not to jostle Josselin any more. Indeed, they became great friends. For next day Barty strolled into the Salle d'Armes, Rue des Dunes--and there he found Monsieur Jean fencing with young de Clèves, the dragoon. Both were good fencers, but Barty was the finest fencer I ever met in my life, and always kept it up; and remembering his adventure of the previous day, it amused him to affect a careless nonchalance about such trivial things--"des enfantillages!" "_You_ take a turn with Jean, Josselin!" said the dragoon. "Oh! I'm out of practice--and I've only got one eye...." "Je vous en prie, monsieur de la garde!" said the viscount. "Cette fois, alors, nous allons tirer _ensemble_!" says Barty, and languidly dons the mask with an affected air, and makes a fuss about the glove not suiting him; and then, in spite of his defective sight, which seems to make no difference, he lightly and gracefully gives M. Jean such a dressing as that gentleman had never got in his life--not even from his maître d'armes: and afterwards to young de Clèves the same. Well I knew his way of doing this kind of thing! So Barty and M. and Madame Jean became quite intimate--and with his usual indiscretion Barty told them how he fluked that bull's-eye, and they were charmed! "Vous êtes impayable, savez-vous, mon cher!" says M. Jean--"vous avez tous les talents, et un million dans le gosier par-dessus le marché! Si jamais je puis vous être de service, savez-vous, comptez sur moi pour la vie ..." said the impulsive viscount when they bade each other good-bye at the end. [Illustration: "'À VOUS, MONSIEUR DE LA GARDE!'"] "Et plus jamais d'enveloppes vides, quand vous m'écrirez!" says madame. * * * * *