"Will you fight me now?" said the duke with a sneering smile and raising his cane again, "or does your cowardice require a further stimulus?"
"Fight you? Yes, by heaven!" said Paul, with a deep inspiration. "Send your second here without delay to meet mine. I hold no further parley with you. My sword shall speak for me."
A gleam of ferocious joy passed over the duke's face.
"My second shall attend yours within an hour. But first a caution to Radzivil. He hath too talkative a tongue, and this matter must be kept secret."
He turned from Paul, who sat down, the cynosure of many eyes. The loungers on the balcony, the hotel-attendants, the passers-by on the boulevard, had seen the duke's action, and concluded that in his usual sweet fashion he was simply chastising the impertinence of one of his own subordinates.
And as Paul sat there thinking, first of the insult he had received, and then of the fair, graceful head of Barbara pillowed on the breast of this savage, he felt the devil of hatred rising within him.
"By God, I'll kill him!" he muttered between his set teeth. "I shall be doing Barbara a service. He to marry her, forsooth!"
The Duke of Bora, not at all ashamed of his display of passion, vexed only that Radzivil should have shown such marked disapproval, moved forward to the table where the premier sat with wine before him.
The latter durst offer no more than mild remonstrances, for he occupied a delicate position. It was not polite to make an enemy of one destined to be the Prince Consort of Czernova.
"Your grace, you forget that duelling is forbidden by the law."