Santa Margherita, putting his head out of the window, caught sight of another carriage standing in the drive before the villa.
'They are waiting for us,' he said.
He consulted his watch--ten minutes yet to the hour agreed upon.

He got out of the carriage and went across with the other seconds and the surgeons to the opponents.

Andrea stayed behind in the avenue.

He went over, in his own mind, certain points of attack and defence he hoped to employ successfully, but the miracles of light and shadow playing fitfully through the interlacing laurels distracted his attention.

While his mind was occupied with the position of the wound he intended inflicting, his eyes were attracted by the reeds shivering in the morning breeze, and the trees, tender as the amorous allegories of Petrarch, sighed gently over a head that was wholly absorbed in plans of dealing a mortal blow.
Barbarisi came to call him.
'Everything is ready,' he said.