. . . What he said resolved itself
into a single articulate word, for all the others were choked in his
throat by his surging wrath--
"A duel, Monsieur," he stammered.
Once more Blakeney turned, and from his high altitude looked
down on the choleric little man before him; but not even for a second
did he seem to lose his own imperturbable good-humour. He laughed his
own pleasant and inane laugh, and burying his slender, long hands into
the capacious pockets of his overcoat, he said leisurely--a
bloodthirsty young ruffian, Do you want to make a hole in a
law-abiding man?. . .As for me, sir, I never fight duels," he added,
as he placidly sat down and stretched his long, lazy legs out before him.
"Demmed uncomfortable things, duels, ain't they, Tony?"
Now the Vicomte had no doubt vaguely heard that in England the
fashion of duelling amongst gentlemen had been surpressed by the law
with a very stern hand; still to him, a Frenchman, whose notions of
bravery and honour were based upon a code that had centuries of
tradition to back it, the spectacle of a gentleman actually refusing
to fight a duel was a little short of an enormity.
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