“I will read to you the letter which the Baron left for me with Florent,” said Dorsenne, who indeed read the very courteous note Hafner had written to him, in which he excused himself for choosing his own house as a rendezvous for the four witnesses.  “One can not ignore so polite a note.”

“There are too many dear sirs, and too many compliments,” said Montfanon, brusquely.  “Sit here,” he continued, relinquishing his armchair to Florent, “and inform the two men of our names and address, adding that we are at their service and ignoring the first inaccuracy on their part.  Let them return!....  And you, Dorsenne, since you are afraid of wounding that gentleman, I will not prevent you from going to his house—­personally, do you hear—­to warn him that Monsieur Chapron, here present, has chosen for his first second a disagreeable person, an old duellist, anything you like, but who desires strict form, and, first of all, a correct call made upon us by them, in order to settle officially upon a rendezvous.”

“What did I tell you?” asked Dorsenne, when he with Florent descended Montfanon’s staircase.  “He is a different man since you mentioned the Baron to him.  The discussion between them will be a hot one.  I hope he will not spoil all by his folly.  On my honor, if I had guessed whom Gorka would choose I should not have suggested to you the old leaguer, as I call him.”

“And I, if Monsieur de Montfanon should make me fight at five paces,” replied Chapron, with a laugh, “would be grateful to you for having brought me into relations with him.  He is a whole-souled man, as was my poor father, as is Maitland.  I adore such people.”

“Is there no means of having at once heart and head?” said Julien to himself, on reaching the Palais Savorelli, where Hafner lived, and recalling the Marquis’s choler on the one hand, and on the other the egotism of Maitland, of which Florent’s last words reminded him.  His apprehension of the afternoon returned in a greater degree, for he knew Montfanon to be very sensitive on certain points, and it was one of those points which would be wounded to the quick by the forced relations with Gorka’s witnesses.  “I do not trust Hafner,” thought he; “if the cunning fellow has accepted the mission utterly contrary to his tastes, his habits, almost to his age, it must be to connive with his future son-in-law and to conciliate all.  Perhaps even the marriage had been already settled?  I hope not.  The Marquis would be so furious he would require the duel to a letter.”

The young man had guessed aright.  Chance, which often brings one event upon another, decreed that Ardea, at the very moment that he was deliberating with Gorka as to the choice of another second, received a note from Madame Steno containing simply these words:  “Your proposal has been made, and the answer is yes.  May I be the first to embrace you, Simpaticone?”