“But,” said the little boy, “she was not ill when we walked together after breakfast.  She was so gay.”

“I think, too, it will be nothing serious,” replied Gorka.  He was obliged to dismiss his son and to go out.  He felt so horribly sad that he was physically afraid to remain alone in the house.  But whither should he go?  Mechanically he repaired to the club, although it was too early to meet many of the members there.  He came upon Pietrapertosa and Cibo, who had dined there, and who, seated on one of the divans, were conferring in whispers with the gravity of two ambassadors discussing the Bulgarian or Egyptian question.

“You have a very nervous air,” they said to Boleslas, “you who were in such good form this afternoon.”

“Yes,” said Cibo, “you should have dined with us as we asked you to.”

“When one is to fight a duel,” continued Pietrapertosa, sententiously, “one should see neither one’s wife nor one’s mistress.  Madame Gorka suspects nothing, I hope?”

“Absolutely nothing,” replied Boleslas; “you are right.  I should have done better not to have left you.  But, here I am.  We will exorcise dismal thoughts by playing cards and supping!”

“By playing cards and supping!” exclaimed Pietrapertosa.  “And your hand?  Think of your hand....  You will tremble, and you will miss your man.”

“Alright dinner,” said Cibo, “to bed at ten o’clock, up at six-thirty, and two eggs with a glass of old port is the recipe Machault gives.”

“And which I shall not follow,” said Boleslas, adding:  “I give you my word that if I had no other cause for care than this duel, you would not see me in this condition.”  He uttered that phrase in a tragical voice, the sincerity of which the two Italians felt.  They looked at each other without speaking.  They were too shrewd and too well aware of the simplest scandals of Rome not to have divined the veritable cause of the encounter between Florent and Boleslas.  On the other hand, they knew the latter too well not to mistrust somewhat his attitudes.  However, there was such simple emotion in his accent that they spontaneously pitied him, and, without another word, they no longer opposed the caprices of their strange client, whom they did not leave until two o’clock in the morning—­and fortune favored them.  For they found themselves at the end of a game, recklessly played, each the richer by two or three hundred louis apiece.  That meant a few days more in Paris on the next visit.  They, too, truly regretted their friend’s luck, saying, on separating: 

“I very much fear for him,” said Cibo.  “Such luck at gaming, the night before a duel—­bad sign, very bad sign.”

“So much the more so that some one was there,” replied Pietrapertosa, making with his fingers the sign which conjures the jettutura.  For nothing in the world would he have named the personages against whose evil eye he provided in that manner.  But Cibo understood him, and, drawing from his trousers pocket his watch, which he fastened a l’anglaise by a safety chain to his belt, he pointed out among the charms a golden horn: