Independently that he liked Czernavitz personally, he was sorry for a quarrel at such a moment. There was a great game about to be played, and a mere personal altercation seemed something small and contemptible in the face of such events. “What will be said of us,” thought he, “but that we were a pair of hot-headed fools, thinking more of a miserable interchange of weak sarcasms than of the high destinies of a whole nation? And it was _my_ fault,” added he to himself; “I had no right to reproach him with a calamity hard enough to bear, even without its being a reproach. What a strange thing is life, after all!” thought he; “everything of greatest moment that occurs in it the upshot of an accident,--my going to Ireland, my visit to the West, my election, my meeting with Kate Henderson, and now this duel.” And, so ruminating, he dropped off into a sound sleep, undisturbed by sounds that might well have broken the heaviest slumber. CHAPTER VIII. AN EVENING OF ONE OP THE “THREE DAYS” On the evening which witnessed these events Lady Dorothea's “reception” had been more than usually brilliant. Numbers had come to show of how little moment they deemed this “street disturbance,” as they were pleased to call it; others, again, were curious to pick up in society the opinions formed on what was passing, among whom were several high in the favor of the Court and the confidence of the Government. All, as they arrived, had some little anecdote or adventure to relate as to the difficulties which beset them on the way,--the distances which they were obliged to travel, the obstructions and passwords and explanations which met them at every turn. These were all narrated in the easy, jocular tone of passing trifles, the very inconvenience of which suggested its share of amusement. As the evening wore on, even these became less frequent; the streets were already thinning, and, except in some remote, unimportant parts of the capital, the troops were in possession of all the thoroughfares. Of course, the great topic of conversation was the bold stroke of policy then enacting,--a measure which all pronounced wise and just, and eminently called for. To have heard the sentiments then uttered, the disparaging opinions expressed of the middle and humbler classes, the hopelessness of ever seeing them sufficiently impressed with their own inferiority, the adulation bestowed on the monarch and all around him, one might really have fancied himself back again at the Tuileries in the time of Louis the Fourteenth. All agreed in deeming the occasion an excellent one to give the people a salutary lesson; and it was really pleasant to see the warm interest taken by these high and distinguished persons in the fortunes of their less happy countrymen.