You won't appear like a coward in a
woman's eyes."
"That is an odd kind of logic."
"Do be quiet with your logic and your philosophy, and the lot of
them. I am not a logician, but a man, and I feel a mortal offense
like a man, and want to settle with the offender."
"Do stop a minute and let me speak a word. I will break off my
relations with Fraulein Ellrich, and then I shall not be in a
position to fight for her."
"That is very chivalrous!"
"That is silly! Just think of this situation: suppose I wound or
kill the offender--come back from the duel, and find the young girl,
who is the cause of the quarrel, ready to offer me the prize. I
answer: 'Many thanks, fair lady, I do not now wish for it,' and
straightway leave her, like the knight in the old ballad."
That seemed to satisfy Paul.
"Very well; then it must not be on her account. But fight you must,"
and he stopped suddenly, and then burst out: "If you will not fight
him, I will."
"Are you mad?"
Paul began to explain that he had the right to do it; he worked
himself into a fury, he stuck to his ideas, and it took Wilhelm an
hour to bring him to a more reasonable frame of mind. He spared no
pains in explaining to him his views of the world's opinion, and
that the real cowardice would be to fear the foolish prejudices of
society; but it was all in vain, and Paul's angry objections were
only silenced when Wilhelm said with great earnestness:
"If nothing that I say convinces you, I can only act in one way with
the painful knowledge that our friendship is not equal to such
conditions, but only to ordinary occasions.
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