simplest scandals of Rome not to have divined the veritable cause of the
encounter between Florent and Boleslas. On the other hand, they knew the
latter too well not to mistrust somewhat his attitudes. However, there
was such simple emotion in his accent that they spontaneously pitied him,
and, without another word, they no longer opposed the caprices of their
strange client, whom they did not leave until two o'clock in the morning
--and fortune favored them. For they found themselves at the end of a
game, recklessly played, each the richer by two or three hundred louis
apiece. That meant a few days more in Paris on the next visit. They,
too, truly regretted their friend's luck, saying, on separating:

"I very much fear for him," said Cibo. "Such luck at gaming, the night
before a duel--bad sign, very bad sign."

"So much the more so that some one was there," replied Pietrapertosa,
making with his fingers the sign which conjures the jettutura. For
nothing in the world would he have named the personages against whose
evil eye he provided in that manner. But Cibo understood him, and,
drawing from his trousers pocket his watch, which he fastened a
l'anglaise by a safety chain to his belt, he pointed out among the charms
a golden horn:

"I have not let it go this evening," said he. "The worst is, that Gorka
will not sleep, and then, his hand!"

Only the first of those two prognostics was to be verified. Returning
home at that late hour, Boleslas did not even retire. He employed the
remainder of the night in writing a long letter to his wife, one to his
son, to be given to him on his eighteenth birthday, all in case of an
accident. Then he examined his papers and he came upon the package of