“I shall be most happy to tell you the facts,” said Valentin.  “They are very simple, and it will be quickly done.  But now everything depends on my putting my hands on my friends without delay.  I will jump into a cab; you had better drive to my room and wait for me there.  I will turn up at the end of an hour.”

Newman assented protestingly, let his friend go, and then betook himself to the picturesque little apartment in the Rue d’Anjou.  It was more than an hour before Valentin returned, but when he did so he was able to announce that he had found one of his desired friends, and that this gentleman had taken upon himself the care of securing an associate.  Newman had been sitting without lights by Valentin’s faded fire, upon which he had thrown a log; the blaze played over the richly-encumbered little sitting-room and produced fantastic gleams and shadows.  He listened in silence to Valentin’s account of what had passed between him and the gentleman whose card he had in his pocket—­M.  Stanislas Kapp, of Strasbourg—­after his return to Mademoiselle Nioche’s box.  This hospitable young lady had espied an acquaintance on the other side of the house, and had expressed her displeasure at his not having the civility to come and pay her a visit.  “Oh, let him alone!” M. Stanislas Kapp had hereupon exclaimed.  “There are too many people in the box already.”  And he had fixed his eyes with a demonstrative stare upon M. de Bellegarde.  Valentin had promptly retorted that if there were too many people in the box it was easy for M. Kapp to diminish the number.  “I shall be most happy to open the door for you!” M. Kapp exclaimed.  “I shall be delighted to fling you into the pit!” Valentin had answered.  “Oh, do make a rumpus and get into the papers!” Miss Noemie had gleefully ejaculated.  “M.  Kapp, turn him out; or, M. de Bellegarde, pitch him into the pit, into the orchestra—­anywhere!  I don’t care who does which, so long as you make a scene.”  Valentin answered that they would make no scene, but that the gentleman would be so good as to step into the corridor with him.  In the corridor, after a brief further exchange of words, there had been an exchange of cards.  M. Stanislas Kapp was very stiff.  He evidently meant to force his offence home.

“The man, no doubt, was insolent,” Newman said; “but if you hadn’t gone back into the box the thing wouldn’t have happened.”

“Why, don’t you see,” Valentin replied, “that the event proves the extreme propriety of my going back into the box?  M. Kapp wished to provoke me; he was awaiting his chance.  In such a case—­that is, when he has been, so to speak, notified—­a man must be on hand to receive the provocation.  My not returning would simply have been tantamount to my saying to M. Stanislas Kapp, ’Oh, if you are going to be disagreeable’”—­

“‘You must manage it by yourself; damned if I’ll help you!’ That would have been a thoroughly sensible thing to say.  The only attraction for you seems to have been the prospect of M. Kapp’s impertinence,” Newman went on.  “You told me you were not going back for that girl.”