as I
call him."

"And I, if Monsieur de Montfanon should make me fight at five paces,"
replied Chapron, with a laugh, "would be grateful to you for having
brought me into relations with him. He is a whole-souled man, as was my
poor father, as is Maitland. I adore such people."

"Is there no means of having at once heart and head?" said Julien to
himself, on reaching the Palais Savorelli, where Hafner lived, and
recalling the Marquis's choler on the one hand, and on the other the
egotism of Maitland, of which Florent's last words reminded him. His
apprehension of the afternoon returned in a greater degree, for he knew
Montfanon to be very sensitive on certain points, and it was one of those
points which would be wounded to the quick by the forced relations with
Gorka's witnesses. "I do not trust Hafner," thought he; "if the cunning
fellow has accepted the mission utterly contrary to his tastes, his
habits, almost to his age, it must be to connive with his future
son-in-law and to conciliate all. Perhaps even the marriage had been
already settled? I hope not. The Marquis would be so furious he would
require the duel to a letter."

The young man had guessed aright. Chance, which often brings one event
upon another, decreed that Ardea, at the very moment that he was
deliberating with Gorka as to the choice of another second, received a
note from Madame Steno containing simply these words: "Your proposal has
been made, and the answer is yes. May I be the first to embrace you,
Simpaticone?"

An ingenious idea occurred to him; to have arranged by his future
father-in-law the quarrel which he considered at once absurd, useless,
and dangerous. The eagerness with which Gorka had accepted Hafner's name,
proved, as Dorsenne and Florent had divined, his desire that his
perfidious mistress should be informed of his doings. As for the Baron,
he consented--oh, irony of coincidences!--by saying to Peppino Ardea
words almost identical with those which Montfanon had uttered to
Dorsenne:

"We will draw up, in advance, an official plan of conciliation, and, if
the matter can not be arranged, we will withdraw."

It was in such terms that the memorable conversation was concluded, a
conversation truly worthy of the combinazione which poor Fanny's marriage
represented. There had been less question of the marriage itself than
that of the services to be rendered to the infidelity of the woman who
presided over the sorry traffic! Is it nec