Sir John smiled sadly.
“Needless,” he replied; “you are M. de Montrevel’s friend, and you will find the drive pleasanter with him than with me. I will go on horseback with my servant. You will find me on the ground.”
The young officer carried this reply to Roland.
“What did I tell you?” observed Roland again.
It was then mid-day, there were still seven hours before them, and Roland dismissed his friends to their various pleasures and occupations. At half-past six precisely they were to be at his door with three horses and two servants. It was necessary, in order to avoid interference, that the trip should appear to be nothing more than an ordinary promenade.
At half-past six precisely the waiter informed Roland that his friends were in the courtyard. Roland greeted them cordially and sprang into his saddle. The party followed the boulevards as far as the Place Louis XV. and then turned up the Champs Elysées. On the way the strange phenomenon that had so much astonished Sir John at the time of Roland’s duel with M. de Barjols recurred. Roland’s gayety might have been thought an affectation had it not been so evidently genuine. The two young men acting as seconds were of undoubted courage, but even they were bewildered by such utter indifference. They might have understood it had this affair been an ordinary duel, for coolness and dexterity insure their possessor a great advantage over his adversary; but in a combat like this to which they were going neither coolness nor dexterity would avail to save the combatants, if not from death at least from some terrible wound.
Furthermore, Roland urged on his horse like a man in haste, so that they reached the end of the Allée de la Muette five minutes before the appointed time.
A man was walking in the allée. Roland recognized Sir John. The seconds watched the young man’s face as he caught sight of his adversary. To their great astonishment it expressed only tender good-will.
A few more steps and the four principal actors in the scene that was about to take place met.
Sir John was perfectly calm, but his face wore a look of profound sadness. It was evident that this meeting grieved him as deeply as it seemed to rejoice Roland.