The vase shattered into a thousand pieces but the Russian remained on his feet. His eyes opened wide in an expression of enormous surprise and he swayed slightly. Then he sat down heavily on the edge of the bed while Fournier-Sarlovèze gave vent to a great shout of laughter that effectively drowned the torrent of abuse which Marianne was heaping on her late attacker. When, however, she made a lunge for a second vase, the twin of the first, with the object of following up her advantage, the hussar general saw fit to intervene:

'Now then, easy does it, young woman! Pretty things like that don't deserve such treatment.'

'And what about me? Did I deserve such treatment as this brutal savage meted out to me?'

'Precisely. So there's no need to add to the injury by destroying your own property. You might use the poker or the fire irons just as well—No!' he added firmly, seeing Marianne's eye light with a gleam on the heavy bronze poker. 'Leave that where it is. All things considered, I'd rather kill him myself.'

With difficulty, because she was still in great pain, Marianne summoned up a smile for her unlooked-for preserver. She wondered how on earth she could ever have disliked François Fournier.

'I don't know how to thank you,' she said shyly.

'Then don't try, or we shall never be done with thanking each other. How do you summon your maid? The girl must be deaf!'

'No, no, don't call her! She does sleep soundly, so soundly that she ties the bell rope to her little finger in case I should wish for her in the night. But for once, I am glad of it. I – I am not precisely proud of what has happened.'

'Don't see why you should be ashamed of it. Call it war-wounds! With his kind, it's always war to some extent. But I intend to rid him of any desire to repeat the experiment.' He turned to the Russian. 'Well, you? Are you ready?'

'One moment,' the Russian said gravely. Then he walked with equal gravity to where a carafe of water stood on a table and emptied its contents straight over his head. Water streamed over the smart green uniform and dripped heavily on to the carpet, but Chernychev's eyes at once lost their dull, fixed expression. He shook himself like a dog and, tossing his soaking wet hair out of his eyes, drew his sword and smiled disdainfully at Fournier.

'When you like,' he said coldly. 'I do not care to be interrupted in my amusements.'

'Funny idea of amusement, you have! But I think, if it is all the same to you, we will settle this affair in the garden. There appears,' gesturing with the point of his sword at the torn curtains, the broken window, the shattered vase and the pool of water sinking slowly into the carpet, 'there appears to have been sufficient damage for one night.'

Marianne uttered a small, contemptuous laugh. 'The count is not at liberty to fight,' she said frostily. 'He has a mission to perform and should be already on his way to his own country.'

'I am already behind time,' Chernychev agreed. 'A little more or less… I can spare time to kill this interfering fellow – who I take it is another of your lovers?'

'No,' Fournier corrected, with dreadful affability. 'Her best friend's lover. Come, now, Chernychev. Stop playing the fool. You know quite well who I am. The best swordsman in the Empire is not easily forgotten, once you have encountered him on the battlefield,' he added with simple pride. 'Remember Austerlitz.'

'And you,' Marianne broke in, 'remember your present position. I swear on my father's memory that I would give ten years of my life to see this villain lying dead, but have you thought of what will be the outcome if you kill him? You have only just come out of prison. The Emperor will have you back there instantly.'

'With the greatest of pleasure,' Fournier agreed. 'He dislikes me extremely.'

'I can't speak for his pleasure, but he will certainly send you back. And for how long? This man must be covered by diplomatic immunity. It will mean the end of your career… and I owe you too much to let you do that—however much I may want to.'

Fournier-Sarlovèze made a careless pass that made the air whistle past his naked blade and shrugged:

'I will try not to kill him outright. I dare say a stiff lesson will be enough and, since he too is in the wrong, I should think he will keep quiet. As for yourself, Princess, it is useless to persist. There is no power on earth would prevent me from crossing swords with a Russian when I find one. You must realize that this is a high treat for me. You there, are you coming?' The last words were addressed to Chernychev, but before the Russian could reply, Fournier-Sarlovèze had vaulted swiftly over the edge of the balcony and dropped lightly down into the garden. His opponent, following more slowly, paused for a moment before Marianne where she stood with folded arms, watching him with eyes bright with hatred. 'He will not kill me,' he said, the faint slur of drunkenness still sounding in his voice. 'And I shall return.'

'I do not advise you to.'

'I shall come all the same, and you will go with me. I have set my seal upon you.'

'Burns heal, or may be covered by another.' Marianne's voice grew suddenly fierce. 'And I would tear out my own flesh before I retained the least mark of yours! Go! And never set foot here again! And know that if you should ever dare to, the Emperor shall know of it within the hour, if I have to show him what you have done.'

'What can he do to me? I serve the Tsar.'

'And I serve the Emperor. And it may be that your master may not relish the displeasure of mine.'

Before Chernychev could answer, Fournier's voice came up to them impatiently from the garden:

'Are you coming down, or must I come up and fetch you?'

'Go,' Marianne told him, 'but remember this also: I can use a man's weapons and if you ever dare to enter this house again, should you leave it alive this time, know that I will shoot you like a dog.'

A shrug was Chernychev's only reply, then he turned and made for the garden at such speed that he all but dived over the balcony. The next instant, the two men were facing each other on the small, circular patch of grass in the centre of the garden. Clutching her green silken wrap around her, Marianne stepped out on to the balcony to see the fight. Her feelings had undergone a considerable alteration. She was as anxious as ever to see her late, unworthy attacker spitted without mercy, but gratitude towards the general made her hope that he would not ruin his career irreparably for the sake of chastizing a brutal sadist.

Before stepping outside, Marianne had paused to relight the candles and now the light from the room threw a pale glow over the two duellists, making the naked blades gleam as they met in a shower of sparks. The two men were evidently well matched. The Russian was slightly taller than the Frenchman and looked the more powerful of the two but Fournier's lithe, southern build concealed formidable strength and tremendous agility. He was everywhere at once, encircling his adversary in a dance of death and weaving a flashing spider web all about him.

Wholly intent, caught in spite of herself by the odd, boyish fascination which the formidable art of swordplay had always held for her, Marianne was eagerly following every step of the duel when suddenly a head appeared above the wall at the bottom of the garden, adjoining the rue de l'Université, the same wall which Chernychev and Fournier had both climbed in their turn. The head was surmounted, somewhat alarmingly, by a cocked hat. Another head appeared, followed by a third.

'The law officers!' Marianne thought. 'That was all we needed!'

She leaned over the balcony to tell the two men to put away their swords but she was too late. A gruff voice announced: 'Duelling, gentlemen, is against the law. You ought to know that. I arrest you in the name of the Emperor.'

Unperturbed, Fournier laid his sword across his arm and presented it to the officer who was engaged in climbing over the wall, presumably by dint of standing on his horse's back, then smiled disarmingly:

'A duel? Why, officer, whatever gave you such an idea? My friend and I were merely trying a few passes, nothing more.'

'At four o'clock in the morning? And with a lady looking on, and not as if she was enjoying it much, either,' the officer said, looking up at Marianne's troubled face.

It had not taken her very long to realize that the arrival of the officers of the law upon the scene was quite the worst of the night's disasters. After what had occurred at the theatre that evening, a duel at her house in the middle of the night between Chernychev and Fournier was bound to cause a scandal: it meant the wrath of the Emperor, who had grown extremely sensitive in the matter of the respectability of those about him since his marriage to his archduchess, and there would be severe penalties for the culprits as well as the dreadful blow to Marianne's own reputation. Add to that Chernychev's position as a Russian engaged on diplomatic service, and the affair could even develop into an international incident. Something must be done to stop it, and at once! Seeing that the officer, having succeeded in scaling the wall, was now warning the late adversaries that it was his duty to escort them to the nearest police station, Marianne leaned hastily over the parapet:

'Wait, officer! I am coming down. We can talk this over more comfortably indoors.'

'There is nothing to talk about, Madame, as far as I can see. Duelling is against the law. Unfortunately for these two gentlemen, we heard the clash of swords as we were going our rounds. It's a clear case.'