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 my good. "If I mistake not, I saw you at the ball last night."

"I was there," I answered curtly.

"I want a word or two with you, sometime, and will wait upon you." Had I been a servant at whom he was flinging an order, he could not have put more offensive patronage into his tone.

"If you will write your business I will see if I have time to give you an appointment," I answered with intentional brusqueness. He was not accustomed to be addressed in such a tone, and he started and flushed with anger. I took no notice, but with a bow to the Princess I murmured, "I have the honour to wish you good day, Madame," and, ignoring the Duke entirely, I went away, leaving him staring angrily after me.

"I hate the brute," I said to myself as I went into the street; and in truth I seemed to find a special cause of offence in the fact that I had had to leave him alone with the Princess. "I wish to Heaven he'd quarrel with me," I muttered; and, indeed, the wish was to have a fulfilment that at the moment I had no cause to anticipate or hope.