well aware that an affair of honor always makes a man stand well in the eyes of a woman. In fact, Fleur-de-Lys looked him full in the face, all agitated with fear, pleasure, and admiration. Still, she was not completely reassured.

“Provided that you are wholly cured, my Phoebus!” said she.

“I do not know your Mah� F�dy, but he is a villanous man. And whence arose this quarrel?”

Here Phoebus, whose imagination was endowed with but mediocre power of creation, began to find himself in a quandary as to a means of extricating himself for his prowess.

“Oh! how do I know? — a mere nothing, a horse, a remark! Fair cousin,” he exclaimed, for the sake of changing the conversation, “what noise is this in the Cathedral Square?”