"No, Miguel, no; you cannot measure yourself with this man. After what I have just heard I should prefer a thousand times to die, or to spend my whole life in disgrace, rather than to marry such a monster."
"Let go of me! Let go!" cried Miguel, trying to free himself from her arms.
"No, my brother; kill me, put me into a convent, but don't expose your own life.... Remember Maximina and your little son."
Don Alfonso at the same time stretched out his hand, and said calmly:—
"Before beginning a disgusting scene, unworthy of two gentlemen, such as we are...."
"Of a gentleman like this! you are no gentleman," exclaimed Julia, giving him a furious look and clinging to her brother.
"Before beginning a scene like this," the Andalusian went on to say, making a contemptuous gesture at the interruption, "listen to one word, Miguel. I have said that I am resolved not to fight, because I do not wish to run the risk of killing you, nor of dying. From here I am going directly to Paris, and probably you will never see me again in this world. If you insist on detaining me, I will meet force with force; if you insult me, as I am in a strange country where no one knows me, it will be of no great consequence to me. And if you should happen to tell the story in Madrid, besides publishing your own dishonor, no one will believe you; because it is not credible that a man who has fought fourteen duels, five of them to the death, would through fear avoid a challenge from a man who scarcely knows how to hold a weapon. So then understand that my resolution is irrevocable."
"Well, then, I will kill you like a dog," said Miguel, whipping out a revolver from his pocket.
"If you kill me (which I shall take good care that you do not do)," retorted Saavedra, drawing another revolver, "you would go from here straight to jail, and your sister would remain forsaken."
Miguel stood for a moment in doubt; then he shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of sovereign contempt, and said, as he put back the pistol:—