“Where are you going? Wait, wait!” cried Vauvert, stammering and hardly able to speak at all, he was so excited. I pretended not to hear, and went farther into the woods.
Vauvert started to run after me; he overtook me and seized my hand, and I felt that he was trembling like a rabbit.
“Where on earth are you going, my dear fellow? why do you go so far into the woods? Don’t you see that we’re going to have a storm?”
“It seems to me that the affair that brings us here can hardly be adjusted on the highroad; it would be as sensible to choose Boulevard Saint-Denis for the battlefield.”
“My friend, I hope that—at all events——”
“As for the storm, that needn’t disturb us; on the contrary, it will keep bystanders away.”
While I was talking with Vauvert, I heard my neighbor shouting in the distance:
“No adjustment, Monsieur Vauvert, no adjustment! I don’t propose to consent to any compromise; I am determined to fight!”
“You hear him!” said Vauvert; “he’s crazy. Oh! he’s a terrible fellow when he gets started. He has said everywhere that he proposed to have your life, or that you should have his.”
I could not help laughing at Raymond’s bluster; and I ventured to reassure poor Vauvert, who did not know which way to turn, having never been present at such a function. At last we were joined by my adversary and the Baron de Witcheritche, the latter of whom wore a three-cornered hat, eight inches high, cocked over his left ear, which gave him the aspect of a bully from the Rue Coquenard.