"Quite possible."
"Pooh! pooh!"
"But what did you fight about?"
"A very serious matter, which called for bloodshed. Only imagine that, at a very large party, M. de Lucenay actually said that I had a phlegmy cough!"
"That you had—"
"A phlegmy cough, my dear lawyer; a complaint which is really most ridiculously absurd!"
"And did you fight about that?"
"What the devil would you have a man fight about? Can you imagine that a man could stand calmly and hear himself charged with having a phlegmy cough? And before a lovely woman, too! Before a little marchioness, who—who—In a word, I could not stand it!"
"Really!"
"The military men, you see, are always sensitive. My seconds went, the day before yesterday, to try and obtain some explanation from those of the duke. I put the matter perfectly straight,—a duel or an ample apology."