She drew back, but still stood looking at me coldly. The dislike in her eyes wounded me inexpressively.
Before she spoke I had longed only for the chance to assure her of my regard, and had she appealed to me generously, in a manner suited to one so noble-looking, I was in a state of mind to swim rivers and climb mountains to serve her. I still would have fought the duel, but sooner than harm her brother I would have put my hand in the fire. Now, since she had spoken, I was filled only with pity and disappointment. It seemed so wrong that one so finely bred and wonderfully fair should feel so little consideration. No matter how greatly she had been prejudiced against me she had no cause to ignore my rights in the matter. To speak to me as though I had no honor of my own, no worthy motive, to treat me like a common brawler who, because his vanity was wounded, was trying to force an unoffending stranger to a fight.
My vanity was wounded, but I felt more sorry for her than for myself, and when she spoke again I listened eagerly, hoping she would say something which would soften what had gone before. But she did not make it easier for either of us.
“If I persuade my brother to apologize for what he said of your regiment,” she continued, “will you accept his apology?” Her tone was one partly of interrogation, partly of command. “I do not think he is likely to do so,” she added, “but if you will let that suffice, I shall see him at once, and ask him.”
“You need not do that!” I replied, quickly. “As I have said, it is not my affair. It concerns my—a great many people. I am sorry, but the meeting must take place.”
For the first time Miss Fiske smiled, but it was the same smile of amusement with which she had regarded us when she first saw us in the plaza.
“I quite understand,” she said, still smiling. “You need not assure me that it concerns a great many people.” She turned away as though the interview was at an end, and then halted. She had stepped into the circle of the moonlight so that her beauty shone full upon me.
“I know that it concerns a great many people,” she cried. “I know that it is all a part of the plot against my father!”
I gave a gasp of consternation which she misconstrued, for she continued, bitterly.
“Oh, I know everything,” she said. “Mr. Graham has told me all that you mean to do. I was foolish to appeal to any one of you. You have set out to fight my father, and your friends will use any means to win. But I should have thought,” she cried, her voice rising and ringing like an alarm, “that they would have stopped at assassinating his son.”