"This man," returned Pablito gloomily, "must be an old lover of Valentina's. What is to be done?"
"Then, if he be a lover, I don't know what he could be here for, unless it was to give you a licking."
Pablito threw his arm round his friend's shoulder, not to support himself, although his legs trembled somewhat, but to say, in a low voice:
"Do you think so?"
The handsome young man was silent. At the end of a minute he said:
"Do you know him?"
"I? No; and you?"
"I have never seen him; I only know that he is named Cosme, and that he is a barber."
They left the street in silence, and in silence they arrived at Belinchon's house. There, on taking leave of each other, Pablito said to his friend: