Dual, part 7

'Really?'
'Really.'
'It's quite ghastly.'
'Quite.'
'Then why, pray tell, do you do it?'
'It's a long story.'
'We have all night.'
That statement made me smile.
'Let me think,' I began.
She looked at me intently.
'It began about nine years ago, soon after I was engaged to be married... to Emily. That was the first time I killed a man.'
She looked started, but I continued.
'He tried to take her from me. So I was forced- by honour- to challenge him, fight him, and kill him. Emily did not take it very well, it seemed she loves us both. She fled to a Convent, and I never saw her again.'
'You loved her?'
'Yes.'
'Do you still love her?'
'Yes, damn it, some times. But I have not seen her face... in daylight... for nine years...' thus spoke I, like a fool in a daze. 'She did not take kindly to the violence, not at all fond of it, you might say. Off she went, to the Convent, weeping. Never to return to the world of men. After that I became rather frustrated and... irritable.'
'Irritable?'
'Keen on Dueling.'
She looked at me like I had said I was keen on eating babies.
'How many?' she asked.
'43, no, now 44.'