Fortune did not smile on Dujarier. The luck seemed against him; and, when the party broke up in the small hours, he was a couple of thousand francs to the bad. Worse than this, he was unable to settle his losses until he had borrowed the necessary billets from the head waiter. As a result, his temper was soured, his nerves on edge. Accordingly, when de Beauvallon was tactless enough to upset him again, he "answered somewhat abruptly."
This, however, was not all. The "wine being in, the wit was out." A woman's name cropped up, that of a certain Madame Albert, a young actress in whose affections Dujarier had, before Lola Montez appeared on the scene, been ousted by de Beauvallon. The recollection rankled, and he made some sneering reference to the subject. With an obvious effort, the other kept his temper and curtly remarking, "You will hear from me to-morrow, Monsieur," left the restaurant.
II
"It might have been thought," is the comment of Larousse, "that, with the fever of the wine abated, these happenings and the recollection of the indecorous words accompanying them would, by the next morning, have been forgotten."
But they were not forgotten. They were remembered. On the following afternoon, while Dujarier was in his office, lamenting the fact that he had made such a fool of himself, and wondering how he was to explain matters to Lola, two visitors were announced. One of them was the Comte de Flers and the other was the Vicomte d'Ecquevillez. With ceremonious bows, they stated the purport of their call. This was that they represented de Beauvallon, who "demanded satisfaction for the insults he had received from M. Dujarier."
The quarrel, however, was really one between two rival papers, La Presse and Le Globe, which had long been at daggers drawn. Granier de Cassagnac, the editor of Le Globe, was the brother-in-law of de Beauvallon, and Emile de Girardin, the proprietor of La Presse, had systematically held him up to ridicule in his columns. Hence, when the news of the restaurant fracas leaked out among the café gossipers, the result was that everybody said: "il n'y eut qu'une voix pour dire 'c'est le Globe qui veut se battre avec la Presse.'"
Dujarier, who had no stomach for fighting--except with his pen--would have backed out if he could. But he could not. Things had already gone too far. Accordingly, he referred the visitors to his friends, Arthur Bertrand (a god-son of the Emperor) and Charles de Boignes, and then hurried off to consult them himself.