Moreno went on smoking with the calm of an oriental who considers it advisable to excite the curiosity of the person addressing him before taking any part in the conversation.
“Don Carlos,” he said at last, “as a young fellow you had a good deal to do with firearms. When I was in Buenos Aires I heard that you’d fought in several duels on account of women.”
Rojas looked cautiously about to see whether his daughter happened to be within earshot. Then he smiled with all the fatuous vanity of a man well on in years at the memory of the bold, wild follies of his youth, and said, with an affectation of modesty,
“Bah! Nobody remembers that now! Boyish pranks ... they don’t do that sort of thing these days.”
Moreno thought it proper to suspend the conversation by a long pause; then he announced,
“Canterac and Pirovani are fighting a duel tomorrow. They are going to shoot to kill.”
Don Carlos was frankly amazed.
“But such things are out of style!... And here in this desert of a place?”
Moreno nodded and remained silent. The rancher also refrained from speaking but he looked questioningly at his caller. What in the world had he, don Rojas, to do with all this? And was it simply for the pleasure of giving him this bit of news that the government clerk had taken such a long ride?
“The captain,” said Moreno, “has arranged with the marqués of Torre Bianca and the gringo Watson to be his seconds. As they’re both of them his colleagues, they can’t very well refuse.”