I sat up in bed tingling with excitement at the developments which already I saw arising from his last night's imprudence.
"Calmly, Andrea," I begged of him, "tell me calmly."
"Mortdieu! How can I be calm? Ough! The thought of it chokes me. I was a fool last night--a sot. For that, perchance, men have some right to censure me. But, Sangdieu! that a ruffler of the stamp of Eugène de Canaples should speak of it--should call me the nephew of an Italian adventurer, should draw down upon me the cynical smile of a crowd of courtly apes--pah! I am sick at the memory of it!"
"Did you answer him?"
"Pardieu! I should be worthy of the title he bestowed upon me had I not done so. Oh, I answered him--not in words. I threw my hat in his face."
"That was a passing eloquent reply!"
"So eloquent that it left him speechless with amazement. He thought to bully with impunity, and see me slink into hiding like a whipped dog, terrified by his blustering tongue and dangerous reputation. But there!" he broke off, "a meeting has been arranged for four o'clock at St. Germain."
"A meeting!" I exclaimed.
"What else? Do you think the affront left any alternative?"
"But--"
"Yes, yes, I know," he interrupted, tossing his head. "I am going to be killed. Verville has sworn that there shall be one less of the Italian brood. That is why I have come to you, Luynes--to ask you to be my second. I don't deserve it, perhaps. In my folly last night I did you an ill turn. I unwittingly caused you to be stripped of your commission. But if I were on my death-bed now, and begged a favour of you, you would not refuse it. And what difference is there 'twixt me and one who is on his death-bed? Am I not about to die?"
"Peste! I hope not," I made answer with more lightness than I felt. "But I'll stand by you with all my heart, Andrea."
"And you'll avenge me?" he cried savagely, his Southern blood a-boiling. "You'll not let him leave the ground alive?"
"Not unless my opponent commits the indiscretion of killing me first. Who seconds M. de Canaples?"
"The Marquis de St. Auban and M. de Montmédy."
"And who is the third in our party?"
"I have none. I thought that perhaps you had a friend."