listen to the complaints which Count Gorka has commissioned you to
formulate to Monsieur Florent Chapron's proxies. Formulate those
complaints, and we will discuss them. Formulate the reparation you claim
in the name of your client and we will discuss it. The papers will
follow, if they follow at all, and, once more, neither you nor we know
what will be the issue of this conversation, nor should we know it,
before establishing the facts."

"There is some misunderstanding, sir," said Ardea, whom Montfanon's words
had irritated somewhat. He could not, any more than Hafner, understand
the very simple, but very singular, character of the Marquis, and he
added: "I have been concerned in several 'rencontres'--four times as
second, and once as principal--and I have seen employed without
discussion the proceeding which Baron Hafner has just proposed to you,
and which of itself is, perhaps, only a more expeditious means of
arriving at what you very properly call the establishment of facts."

"I was not aware of the number of your affairs, sir," replied Montfanon,
still more nervous since Hafner's future son-in-law joined in the
conversation; "but since it has pleased you to tell us I will take the
liberty of saying to you that I have fought seven times, and that I have
been a second fourteen.... It is true that it was at an epoch when the
head of your house was your father, if I remember right, the deceased
Prince Urban, whom I had the honor of knowing when I served in the
zouaves. He was a fine Roman nobleman, and did honor to his name. What
I have told you is proof that I have some competence in the matter of a
duel.... Well, we have always held that seconds were constituted to
arrange affairs that could be arranged, but also to settle affairs, as
well as they can, that seem incapable of being arranged. Let us now
inquire into the matter; we are here for that, and for nothing else."