"My dear prince," he said, seating himself on a divan with his colleague of the embassy, "we had no trouble in finding Monsieur Paul Meyrin, whom we both know slightly. He was in his studio on the Via Venti Settembri, close to the Pia Gate. I told him the object of our visit, and I must say that he seemed astounded for a moment. At first he could not understand what to think. However, recovering himself after a few moments' reflection, he replied: 'Very well, gentlemen; I ask no explanation, singular as this challenge is, coming from a man whom I have not seen for four years, and who has kept silence all this time. Two of my friends will have the honor to present themselves at the Palace Feoli within an hour.' We are going back to the embassy to wait for them. As soon as we have arranged everything we will come back and tell you about it."
"Thanks, gentlemen," said Pierre Olsdorf, "I feared Monsieur Meyrin might escape me. Let me remind you I accept in advance his conditions, provided they are of the kind I have mentioned; if they are not, make your own: four balls at twenty paces, with the right for each of us to advance five paces; and in default of result we fight with swords until it is absolutely impossible for one of the combatants to hold his weapon."
"Depend upon us, prince, all shall be arranged as you wish," said Count Panen. "Until this evening."
"Until this evening, count; until this evening, cousin, for we are relatives, my dear baron."
"I have that honor," replied Zamoieff, "and I thank you for the further one you do me in accepting me as a second. Until this evening."
In a few moments Pierre Olsdorf, left alone again, was putting his affairs in order, writing to Mme. Daubrel, to Vera, and to his son Alexander, letters which would be forwarded by Count Panen, if the writer should be killed in the duel with Paul Meyrin.
The Russian nobleman wrote these letters with a firm hand, with all the calmness and courage of a soldier who, in advance, makes the sacrifice to duty of his life.
To Mme. Daubrel he commended the unhappy Lise Barineff; to his son he said in simple and touching terms that he must never forget he was the heir to a stainless name, and that honor was priceless; to Vera he again avowed his love, praying her to forgive him for failing in his promise to return to her.
Meanwhile Paul Meyrin received the two friends he had sent for—-two artists they were, like himself; one an Italian, Giacomo Rimaldi; the other a Frenchman, a student at the Ecole de Rome, Alfred Bertin—and he explained what service he claimed of them.
Less discreet than Prince Olsdorf with his countrymen, he told them the story of his amour and marriage with the wife of the man who now came, at the end of four years, to ask for satisfaction for an outrage effaced, one would have supposed, by the marriage with the divorced wife.