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 drank in