“You need not waste words—­”

“I do not,—­and if Giovanni had not thought it worth while to be jealous of Del Ferice, there would have been no fighting.”

“Have you been telling your young friends that my wife was the cause of all this?” asked Astrardente, trembling with a genuine rage which lent a certain momentary dignity to his feeble frame and painted face.

“Why not?”

“Have you or have you not?”

“Certainly—­if you please,” returned Valdarno insolently, enjoying the old man’s fury.

“Then permit me to tell you that you have taken upon yourself an outrageous liberty, that you have lied, and that you do not deserve to be treated like a gentleman.”

Astrardente got upon his feet and left the cafe without further words.  Valdarno had indeed wounded him in a weak spot, and the wound was mortal.  His blood was up, and at that moment he would have faced Valdarno sword in hand, and might have proved himself no mean adversary, so great is the power of anger to revive in the most decrepit the energies of youth.  He believed in his wife with a rare sincerity, and his blood boiled at the idea of her being rudely spoken of as the cause of a scandalous quarrel, however much Valdarno insisted upon it that she was as indifferent to Giovanni as to Del Ferice.  The story was a shallow invention upon the face of it.  But though the old man told himself so again and again as he almost ran through the narrow streets towards his house, there was one thought suggested by Valdarno which rankled deep.  It was true that Giovanni had last been seen in the Astrardente box at the opera; but he had not remained five minutes seated by the Duchessa before he had suddenly invented a shallow excuse for leaving; and finally, there was no doubt that at that very moment Corona had seemed violently agitated.  Giovanni had not reappeared till the night of the Frangipani ball, and the duel had taken place on the very next morning.  Astrardente could not reason—­his mind was too much disturbed by his anger against Valdarno; but a vague impression that there was something wrong in it all, drove him homewards in wild excitement.  He was ill, too, and had he been in a frame of mind to reflect upon himself, he would have noticed that his heart was beating with ominous irregularity.  He did not even think of taking a cab, but hurried along on foot, finding, perhaps, a momentary relief in violent exertion.  The old blood rushed to his face in good earnest, and shamed the delicately painted lights and shadows touched in by the master-hand of Monsieur Isidore, the cosmopolitan valet.