“Why, my dear! Of course it was. That’s always been the story. What on earth have men to fight duels about except us women? They only pretend it’s cards or horses. Trust me, there’s always a pair of silk stockings at the bottom of it! Girls are so thoughtless—though you and I were just as bad, I suppose, if we only remembered!—and they don’t realize that it’s sometimes a serious thing to trifle with a man. That is, of course, if he’s of a certain type. I think our Virginian girls flirt outrageously. They quit only at the church door (though I will say they generally stop then) and they take a man’s ring without any idea whatever of the sacredness of an engagement. You remember Ilsa Eustis who married the man from Petersburg? She was engaged to two men at once, and used to wear whichever ring belonged to the one who was coming to see her. One day they came together. She was in the yard when they stopped at the horse-block. Well, she tied her handkerchief round her hand and said she’d burned herself pulling candy. (No, neither one of them was the man from Petersburg.) When she was married, one of them wrote her and asked for his ring. It had seven diamonds set in the shape of a cross. I’m telling you this in confidence, just as [Pg 133]it was told to me. She didn’t write a reply—she only sent him a telegram: ‘Simply to thy cross I cling.’ She wears the stones yet in a bracelet.” For a time the conversation languished. Then Mrs. Gifford asked suddenly: ”Who do you suppose she could have been?—the girl behind that old Valiant affair.” Mrs. Mason shook her head. “No one knows for certain—unless, of course, the major or the doctor, and I wouldn’t question either of them for worlds. You see, people had stopped gossiping about it before I was out of school.” “But surely your husband—” “The only quarrel we had while we were engaged was over that. I tried to make him tell me. I imagined from something he said then that the young men who did know had pledged one another not to speak of it.” “I wonder why?” said the other thoughtfully. “Oh, undoubtedly out of regard for the girl. I’ve always thought it so decent of them! If there was a girl in the case, her position must have been unpleasant enough, if she was not actually heart-broken. Imagine the poor thing, knowing that wherever she went, people would be saying: ‘She’s the one they fought the duel over! Look at her!’ If she grieved, they’d say she’d been crazy in love with Sassoon, and point out the dark circles under her eyes, and wonder if she’d ever get over it. [Pg 134]If she didn’t mope, they’d say she was in love with Valiant and was glad it was Sassoon who was shot. If she shut herself up, they’d say she had no pride; if she didn’t, they’d say she had no heart. It was far better to cover the story up and let it die.”