'Point out to General Hamilton the necessity of a prompt and unqualified acknowledgment or denial of the use of any expression which would warrant the assertions of Doctor Cooper.'

The young man frowned; he worshiped Aaron, thought him without flaw, and yet any temporizing in this instance seemed to him almost shameful. 'Why do you not call him out at once, sir? He has given you unendurable provocation.'

Aaron shook his head, smiling wryly. 'Don't be alarmed, John. I have a feeling that you will not be cheated of the bloodshed you desire. But one must observe the proper decorum. You needn't be in such a hurry. You may safely,' he added, with a trace of annoyance, 'leave the vindication of my own honor to me. Come, pour yourself a glass of Madeira from the decanter over there, and then go, for I have much to attend to.'

On June seventeenth, Aaron summoned his friend, William Van Ness, and gave him a letter for Hamilton, who answered evasively and unsatisfactorily, averring that he could not be held responsible for the inferences drawn by others from whatever he had said of a political opponent in the course of fifteen years' competition, and that he could not enter into any explanation on a basis so vague. In short, he denied or affirmed nothing, and the letter, though partially conciliatory in tone, also managed to be subtly insulting. Letter followed letter, and each one carried the two antagonists nearer to the inevitable climax.

On the evening of July tenth Aaron locked himself into his library and, though it was warm, he kindled the fire which lay ready on the hearth. He sat down beside it and watched the orange-and-gold flames. Tomorrow at this time, I may be quite dead, he thought, and the crudity of the thought gave him sardonic amusement. His hand was steady, and, except for a slight persistent chillness, he felt fit and normal.

He thought of Hamilton up at the Grange, surrounded, no doubt, by his wife and children, and the picture gave him an unaccustomed pang of loneliness. Above the fireplace a new portrait of Theodosia had replaced the one by Gilbert Stuart. Vanderlyn had painted it two years ago, and Aaron liked it. But the face was turned from him in profile, and the expression was grave, almost judicial. It gave him no sensation of communion tonight. Still, he poured himself a glass of wine and drank to the picture. 'It is to you, my dearest Theodosia, that I am indebted for a very great portion of the happiness which I have enjoyed in this life,' he said aloud. And he thought of the first Theodosia, her mother. Ten years since she died, and he no longer missed her, or thought of her often. Yet he had been fond of her and had made her a good husband.