Pantaleone chewed his lips and shook his immense top-knot of hair. “Yes.”
(Emil had told him all about it directly he got home.)
“Oh, you know! Well, an officer has just this minute left me. That scoundrel challenges me to a duel. I have accepted his challenge. But I have no second. Will you be my second?”
Pantaleone started and raised his eyebrows so high that they were lost under his overhanging hair.
“You are absolutely obliged to fight?” he said at last in Italian; till that instant he had made use of French.
“Absolutely. I can’t do otherwise—it would mean disgracing myself for ever.”
“H’m. If I don’t consent to be your second you will find some one else.”
“Yes … undoubtedly.”
Pantaleone looked down. “But allow me to ask you, Signor de Tsanin, will not your duel throw a slur on the reputation of a certain lady?”
“I don’t suppose so; but in any case, there’s no help for it.”