"You can rest very easy," said Montfanon to Florent. "How can one aim
correctly when one tires one's arm in that way?"

That had been the only allusion to the duel made between the three men
during the journey, which had taken about an hour. Florent talked as he
usually did, asking all sorts of questions which attested his care for
minute information--the most of which might be utilized by his brother-
in-law-and the Marquis had replied by evoking, with his habitual
erudition, several of the souvenirs which peopled that vast country,
strewn with tombs, aqueducts, ruined villas, with the line of the Monts
Albains enclosing them beyond.

Dorsenne was silent. It was the first affair at which he had assisted,
and his nervous anxiety was extreme.

Tragical presentiments oppressed him, and at the same time he apprehended
momentarily that, Montfanon's religious scruples reawakening, he would
not only have to seek another second, but would have to defer a solution
so near. However, the struggle which was taking place in the heart of
the "old leaguer" between the gentleman and the Christian, was displayed
during the drive only by an almost imperceptible gesture. As the
carriage passed the entrance to the catacomb of St. Calixtus, the former
soldier of the Pope turned away his head. Then he resumed the
conversation with redoubled energy, to pause in his turn, however, when
the landau took, a little beyond the Tomb of Caecilia, a transverse road
in the direction of the Ardeatine Way. It was there that 'l'Osteria del
tempo perso' was built, upon the ground belonging to Cibo, on which the
duel was to take place.

Before l'Osteria, whose signboard was surmounted by the arms of Pope