"Good!" I replied; "next week, then!"
He shook hands and disappeared. I turned to Bixio.
"I hope this postponement till next week will not prevent us from dining as usual?" I said.
"Quite the reverse. I am as hungry as a wolf! Nothing makes one so empty as conspiring."
So we went off and dined with that careless appetite which is the prerogative of conspirators of twenty-eight years of age.
I have always suspected my new chiefs of wishing to, what they call in regimental parlance, test me; in which case Cavaignac can only have come just to make sure of my faithfulness in answering to his summons.
Was or was not Bixio in his confidence? I never could make out.
[1] TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.—Applied to a duellist who always kills or wounds his opponent.