An apology?
Bah! Disgusting! cowardly! beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might be.

How could two soldiers of His Majesty's army identify themselves with such doings?
But Deroulede seemed unconscious of the enormity of his suggestion.
"If I could avoid a conflict," he said, "I would tell the Vicomte that I had no knowledge of his admiration for the lady we were discussing and ..." "Are you so very much afraid of getting a sword scratch, monsieur ?" interrupted the Colonel impatiently, whilst M.de Quettare elevated a pair of aristocratic eyebrows in bewilderment at such an extraordinary display of bourgeois cowardice.
"You mean, Monsieur le Colonel ?"--queried Deroulede.
"That you must either fight the Vicomte de Marny to-night, or clear out of Paris to-morrow.

Your position in our set would become untenable," retorted the Colonel, not unkindly, for in spite of Deroulede's extraordinary attitude, there was nothing in his bearing or his appearance that suggested cowardice or fear.
"I bow to your superior knowledge of your friends, M.le Colonel," responded Deroulede, as he silently drew his sword from its sheath.
The centre of the saloon was quickly cleared.

The seconds measured the length of the swords and then stood behind the antagonists, slightly in advance of the groups of spectators, who stood massed all round the room.
They represented the flower of what France had of the best and noblest in name, in lineage, in chivalry, in that year of grace 1783.

The storm-cloud which a few years hence was destined to break over their heads, sweeping them from their palaces to the prison and the guillotine, was only gathering very slowly in the dim horizon of squalid, starving Paris: for the next half-dozen years they would still dance and gamble, fight and flirt, surround a tottering throne, and hoodwink a weak monarch.