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 "Me soul! Trouble? If he denies me, 'tis himself who'll have all the trouble he desires!"

Again the Frenchman made a sign of dissent.

"It will not be his majesty who will deny you, but—" he shrugged his shoulders expressively.

"Monsieur le Prince?"

"You have said it, monsieur."

The Irishman snapped his fingers angrily.

"That for the whelp!" he declared.

"You do not fear him?"

"Fear—him? Mon ami, ye do not know me."

"You are a bold man, monsieur, to think of defying his highness."

"I suppose he will think so," said O'Rourke shortly, preparing to leave the sick bay. "But, come, Monsieur Chambret. Ye attend the conference?"

"If you seriously purpose to advance your proposition, monsieur, wild horses would not serve to keep me away."

The Frenchman joined arms with O'Rourke, laughing.

"A bold man!" he repeated. "Bold, indeed, to brave the displeasure of Monsieur le Prince, Felix de Grandlieu! I have told you that he is a noted duelist?" "A noted coward, Chambret!" O'Rourke muttered an impolite Anglo-Saxon epithet that appealed to him as highly applicable to the character of Prince Felix. "If he does me the honor," he growled, "of calling me out, I'll take all the pleasure in life in blowing his ugly head off his shoulders."

Again Chambret laughed.

"Decidedly, monsieur," he said lightly, "when we come to settle our affair I must be on my guard!"

"Our affair! I thought ye had forgotten that."

"Non, monsieur; the blow I can forgive you, now that I