"Yes," answered the other, casting a look of satisfaction at himself; "the costume suits me very well; but," added he, between two bursts of laughter, "I have a right, it appears to me, to put the same question to you."
"Hush!" interrupted the first speaker; "Nothing is stable in this world, you know, M. Gagnepain."
"Alas! Who more than I has been in a position to learn that?" sadly said the first traveller.
"You sigh. Have you become the sport of fortune?"
"Fortune and I are too little acquainted just at present," said he, with a smile, "for her to have treated me in one fashion or the other. In fact. I only complain about her indifference towards me. As to you, Monsieur, I should think that the recent events of which our unhappy country has been the theatre cannot but have favourably influenced your fortune."
The second traveller smiled bitterly.
"Ingratitude and proscription are current money in courts," said he; "it is in vain that man thinks himself skilful and acute in this world."
"Without reckoning the passions which influence him," interrupted the first speaker, with a slight accent of raillery. "Where are you going, then, in this manner?"
"To San Miguel de Tucumán; then to Chili."
"Alone?"