"I am quite at your orders, prince," replied the secretary to the embassy.
"I wish you to act as my second in a very serious business. If you require it, I will give you all the explanations that you have the right to ask for; but I should prefer to be silent."
"From a man such as you," replied the count, quickly, "no confidence is needed, for he could not desire anything contrary to the strictest propriety. Keep your secret and command me."
"Thank you. The man whom honor calls upon me to fight to the death, until one or the other of us falls, is Monsieur Paul Meyrin, a painter living in Rome."
"Paul Meyrin, the husband—"
Count Panen was going to exclaim, "The husband of the ex-Princess Olsdorf;" for like the rest of the Russian nobility he was not ignorant of the divorce pronounced a few years ago.
"Yes, he himself," said the prince, bitterly; "he himself."
"Forgive me."
"I should beg your pardon. Later on you shall know more. Meanwhile I must kill Monsieur Paul Meyrin. I don't know where he is living, but you will easily get his address at the Ecole Française, at the Villa Medici. Be so good as to take a friend with you, to whom you can answer for me if I am unknown to him. Whatever conditions Monsieur Meyrin stipulates for accept, provided that they are of a kind to give a fatal issue to our encounter. I only desire one thing—that this affair may be over quickly, to-morrow morning, if possible. I mean to leave for Paris immediately afterward, if I do not fall."
"In a couple of hours, unless Monsieur Meyrin meets us with a refusal, all will be arranged. A good friend of mine—Baron Zamoieff, our second secretary—-will feel it his duty to join with me. Besides, he has the honor of knowing you."