"H'm, let me ask you, did you write to my daughter this morning?"
And Tancred, with that long-drawn breath we take when we prepare for the worst, answered shortly:
"I did."
To this avowal the general nodded encouragingly. Tancred, however, seemed averse to further confidences; he kept looking at his cigar as though it were some strange and uncanny thing.
"H'm, well—er—did you, did you begin the letter with a term of endearment?"
"Yes, general."
Tancred had tossed his cigar—a cigar that ranked nearly with a Havanese—into the finger-bowl. He straightened himself and looked his host in the face.
"Yes, general, and I am sorry for it. I have no excuse, not one. It was a piece of unpardonable ill-breeding. I had no right to send the note; I had no encouragement to write it. The only amend in my power is an apology. I make one now to you; let me beg that you will convey another to your daughter."
The general half rose from his seat and hit the table with his fist. His face was convulsed. He was hideous.
"But, bandit that you are," he cried, "she loves you."