He bowed to Madame Steno and her daughter.  The mother bestowed upon him her pleasantest smile.  She was not one of those mistresses to whom their lovers’ intimate friends are always enemies.  On the contrary, she enveloped them in the abundant and blissful sympathy which love awoke in her.  Besides, she was too cunning not to feel that Florent approved of her love.  But, on the other hand, the intense aversion which Alba at that moment felt toward her mother’s suspected intrigues was expressed by the formality with which she inclined her head in response to the farewell of the young man, who was too happy to have found that the dispute had not been heard.

“From now until to-morrow,” thought he, on redescending the staircase, “there will be no one to warn Lincoln....  The purchase of the drawings was an invention to demonstrate my tranquillity....Now I must find two discreet seconds.”

Florent was a very deliberate man, and a man who had at his command perfect evenness of temperament whenever it was not a question of his enthusiastic attachment to his brother-in-law.  He had the power of observation habitual to persons whose sensitive amour propre has frequently been wounded.  He therefore deferred until later his difficult choice and went to luncheon, as if nothing had happened, at the restaurant where he was expected.  Certainly the proprietor did not mistrust, in replying to the questions of his guest relative to the most recent portraits of Lenbach, that the young man, so calm, so smiling, had on hand a duel which might cost him his life.  It was only on leaving the restaurant that Florent, after mentally reviewing ten of his older acquaintances, resolved to make a first attempt upon Dorsenne.  He recalled the mysterious intelligence given him by the novelist, whose sympathy for Maitland had been publicly manifested by an eloquent article.  Moreover, he believed him to be madly in love with Alba Steno.  That was one probability more in favor of his discretion.

Dorsenne would surely maintain silence with regard to a meeting in connection with which, if it were known, the cause of the contest would surely be mentioned.  It was only too clear that Gorka and Chapron had no real reason to quarrel and fight a duel.  But at ten-thirty, that is to say, three hours after the unreasonable altercation in the vestibule, Florent rang at the door of Julien’s apartments.  The latter was at home, busy upon the last correction of the proofs of ‘Poussiere d’Idees’.  His visitor’s confidence upset him to such a degree that his hands trembled as he arranged his scattered papers.  He remembered the presence of Boleslas on that same couch, at the same time of the day, forty-eight hours before.  How the drama would progress if that madman went away in that mood!  He knew only too well that Maitland’s brother-in-law had not told him all.

“It is absurd,” he cried, “it is madness, it is folly!....  You are not going to fight about an argument such as you have related to me?  You talked at the corner of the street, you exchanged a few angry words, and then, suddenly, seconds, a duel....  Ah, it is absurd.”