It was there that Montfanon and Dorsenne met him to conduct him to the rendezvous in the classical landau.

Hardly had they reached the eminence of the circus of Maxence, on the Appian Way, when they were passed by Boleslas's phaeton.
"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.