“And I have my two shots to fire yet,” he added pitilessly.
General Feraud snapped his teeth, and his face assumed an irate, undaunted expression.
“Go on,” he growled.
These would have been his last words on earth if General D'Hubert had been holding the pistols in his hand. But the pistols were lying on the ground at the foot of a tall pine. General D'Hubert had the second's leisure necessary to remember that he had dreaded death not as a man but as a lover, not as a danger but as a rival—not as a foe to life but as an obstacle to marriage. And, behold, there was the rival defeated! Miserably defeated-crushed—done for!
He picked up the weapons mechanically, and instead of firing them into General Feraud's breast, gave expression to the thought uppermost in his mind.
“You will fight no more duels now.”
His tone of leisurely, ineffable satisfaction was too much for General Feraud's stoicism.
“Don't dawdle then, damn you for a coldblooded staff-coxcomb!” he roared out suddenly out of an impassive face held erect on a rigid body.