In the Days of My Youth: A Novel

by Amelia B. Edwards

The room was by this time crowded to suffocation. I forced my way through, and laid my hand on Dalrymple's arm.

"You have provoked this quarrel," I said, reproachfully.

"That, my dear fellow, is precisely what I came here to do," he replied. "You will have to be my second in this affair."

Here De Simoncourt came up, and hearing the last words, drew me aside.

"I act for De Caylus," he whispered. "Pistols, of course?"

I nodded, still all bewilderment at my novel position.

"Your man received the first blow, so is entitled to the first shot."

I nodded again.

"I don't know a better place," he went on, "than Bellevue. There's a famous little bit of plantation, and it is just far enough from Paris to be secure. The Bois is hackneyed, and the police are too much about it.

"Just so," I replied, vaguely.