nd?"

"She was there, too, with her husband," said Pietrapertosa, heedless of
Cibo's warning glances, "and all Rome besides," adding: "Do you know the
engagement of Ardea and little Hafner is public? They were all three
there, the betrothed and the father, and so happy! I vow, it was fine.
Cardinal Guerillot baptized pretty Fanny."

"And Dorsenne?" again questioned the invalid.

"He was there," said Cibo. "You will be vexed when I tell you of the
reply he dared to make us. We asked him how he had managed--nervous as he
is--to aim at you as he aimed, without trembling. For he did not tremble.
And guess what he replied? That he thought of a recipe of Stendhal's--to
recite from memory four Latin verses, before firing. 'And might one know
what you chose?' I asked of him. Thereupon he repeated: 'Tityre, tu
patulae recubens!"

"It is a case which recalls the word of Casal," interrupted
Pietrapertosa, "when that snob of a Figon recommended to us at the club
his varnish manufactured from a recipe of a valet of the Prince of Wales.
If the young man is not settled by us, I shall be sorry for him."

Although the two 'confreres' had repeated that mediocre pleasantry a
hundred times, they laughed at the top of their sonorous voices and
succeeded in entirely unnerving the injured man. He gave as a pretext his
need of rest to dismiss the fine fellows, of whose sympathy he was
assured, whom he had just found loyal and devoted, but who caused him
pain in conjuring up, in answer to his question, the images of all his
enemies. When one is suffering from a certain sort of pain, remarks like
those naively exchanged between the two Roman imitators of Casal are
intolerable to the hearer. One desires to be alone to feed upon, at least
in peace, the bitter food, the exasperating and inefficacious rancor
against people and against fate, with which Gorka at that moment felt his
heart to be so full. The presence of his former mistress at the races,
and on that afternoon, wounded him more cruelly than the rest. He did not
doubt that she knew through Maitland, himself, certainly informed by
Chapron, of the two duels and of his injury. It was on her account that
he had fought, and that very day she appeared in public, smiling,
coquetting, as if two years of passion had not united their lives, as if
he were to her merely a social acquaintance, a guest at her dinners and
her soirees. He knew her habits so well, and how eagerly, when she loved,
she