"Go on!" he said, grimly.
These would have been his last words if General D'Hubert had been
holding the pistols in his hands. But the pistols were lying on the
ground at the foot of a pine. General D'Hubert had the second of 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!--utterly
defeated, crushed, done for!
He picked up the weapons mechanically, and, instead of firing them into
General Feraud's breast, he gave expression to the thoughts 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 cold-blooded
staff-coxcomb!" he roared out, suddenly, out of an impassive face held
erect on a rigidly still body.
General D'Hubert uncocked the pistols carefully. This proceeding was
observed with mixed feelings by the other general.
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