Yet no one observed that not merely two Fantômas were at the dance, but perhaps three or four, or even more!
A few minutes afterwards, the lovely Sonia Danidoff was waltzing with one of the men wearing the grim black cowl when the second masquer clad in the same tragic garb knocked against the couple; a dialogue verging on the ludicrous ensued.
“Sir!” the first Fantômas, Sonia’s partner, was saying, “I think it a very bold proceeding to have adopted my costume!”
“And why so, sir?” retorted
the other Fantômas in the same emphatic tone.
“Because, sir, it is a heavy costume, and a dangerous one, to wear! No brigand, save myself, had ever dreamt of adopting it till you.”
To this the second masquer replied in a tone of raillery: “You are in the wrong to complain, sir; it would more become me to protest against your audacity. You are an impostor, you carry a disguise. I am the genuine Fantômas!”
“Easy talking, sir!”
“Easier still to prove, sir!”
“So it’s a quarrel, is it; we must settle between us, arms in hand?”