A shudder ran through Melosan, and he looked at the floor in despair.
"Can I offer you a cigar?" continued the man. "No? Then permit me to light my own;" and turning himself in his chair, and reclining comfortably against the back of the fauteuil, the speaker lighted a cigar, and with the utmost calm of mind puffed blue clouds of smoke in the air.
Melosan was evidently struggling with himself. At last he had made up his mind, and, angrily approaching the other, said:
"Listen to me. The sooner we get rid of each other the better it will be for both of us. Why did you hunt me up? You ought to have known long ago that I did not wish to have anything to do with you. You go your way and I will go mine; let neither of us bother the other, and as I am called Melosan, I shall forget that you ever bore any other name than Fagiano."
"You have become proud!" exclaimed the man who called himself Fagiano, laughing mockingly; "upon my word, Anselmo, if I did not know that you were a former galley-slave, I would think you were a prince!"
"And I would hold you now and always for the incarnation of everything that is bad," replied Anselmo (for it was he). "You ought to be called Lucifer instead of Benedetto!"