"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! What is it you would do?" she cried, "Be killed
out here on the Campagna? and not a soul in sight--not a house--not
a shelter? And what is to become of me!--Me!--Me!--" and she tapped
her heaving bosom in melodramatic style, "Have you thought of ME?"
"You--you!" laughed Miraudin, tearing off the lace veil which she
wore wrapped loosely round her head and shoulders, "You, Jeanne
Richaud! What is to become of you? The same fate will attend you
that attends all such little moths of the footlights! Perhaps a
dozen more lovers after me--then old age, and the care of a third-
class lodging-house for broken-down actors!" Here he chose his
weapon. "At your service, Marquis!"
Jeanne Richaud, a soubrette, whose chief stock-in-trade had been her
large dark eyes and shapely legs, uttered a desperate scream, and
threw herself at the feet of the Marquis Fontenelle.
"Monsieur! Monsieur! Think for a moment! This combat is unequal--out
of rule! You are a gentleman,--a man of honour!--would you fight
without seconds? It is murder--murder--!"
Here she broke off, terrified in spite of herself by the
immovability of Fontenelle's attitude, and the coldness of his eyes.
"I regret to pain you, Madame," he said stiffly, "This combat was
arranged according to rule between Monsieur Miraudin and myself some
hours since--and though it seems he did not intend to keep his
engagement I intend to keep mine! The principals in the fight are
here,--seconds are, as their name implies, a secondary matter.
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