The next day, they lunched together in the Bois and, at night, they met at the Opéra.
They saw each other every day for a week. One would have thought that they could not do without each other and that they were united by a great friendship, built up of mutual confidence, sympathy and esteem.
They had a capital time, drinking good wine, smoking excellent cigars, and laughing like two madmen.
In reality, they were watching each other fiercely. Mortal enemies, separated by a merciless hatred, each feeling sure of winning and longing for victory with an unbridled will, they waited for the propitious moment: Altenheim to do away with Sernine; and Sernine to hurl Altenheim into the pit which he was digging for him.
Each knew that the catastrophe could not be long delayed. One or other of them must meet with his doom; and it was a question of hours, or, at most, of days.
It was an exciting tragedy, and one of which a man like Sernine was bound to relish the strange and powerful zest. To know your adversary and to live by his side; to feel that death is waiting for you at the least false step, at the least act of thoughtlessness: what a joy, what a delight!
One evening, they were alone together in the garden of the Rue Cambon Club, to which Altenheim also belonged. It was the hour before dusk, in the month of June, at which men begin to dine before the members come in for the evening's card-play. They were strolling round a little lawn, along which ran a wall lined with shrubs. Beyond the shrubs was a small door. Suddenly, while Altenheim was speaking, Sernine received the impression that his voice became less steady, that it was almost trembling. He watched him out of the corner of his eye. Altenheim had his hand in the pocket of his jacket; and Sernine saw that hand, through the cloth, clutch the handle of a dagger, hesitating, wavering, resolute and weak by turns.
O exquisite moment! Was he going to strike? Which would gain the day: the timid instinct that dare not, or the conscious will, intense upon the act of killing?
His chest flung out, his arms behind his back, Sernine waited, with alternate thrills of pleasure and of pain. The baron had ceased talking; and they now walked on in silence, side by side.
"Well, why don't you strike?" cried the prince, impatiently. He had stopped and, turning to his companion: "Strike!" he said. "This is the time or never. There is no one to see you. You can slip out through that little door; the key happens to be hanging on the wall; and good-bye, baron . . . unseen and unknown! . . . But, of course, all this was arranged . . . you brought me here. . . . And you're hesitating! Why on earth don't you strike?"