“Mon Dieu! the duel has begun. In that case they don’t need me, and I am going home!”
But the former wine merchant recalled his second.
“Why, I am going home; as you’ve begun to fight, you don’t need seconds.”
“But I am not fighting; I am just practising, to get my hand in. Pray come in, my dear Monsieur de Belleville. Do you know, I am terribly distressed to have had that scene in your house!”
“And what about me? Do you think it is pleasant for me?”
“I may have been wrong to speak so slightingly of those two ladies.”
“If you admit that you were wrong, then the affair is arranged, and it isn’t worth while to fight.”
“Yes, but I received a blow!”
“If you were in the wrong——”