The indignation and flurry subsided; but the child of this eruption remained. The Polish party found the legacy of the uproar as cold as its cause had been hot. Bitzenko inspired respect as he scratched his beard, which smelt of Turkish tobacco, and wrinkled up imperturbably small grey eyes.

Then, the excitement over, the red mark on Soltyk’s cheek became merely a fact. One or two of his friends found themselves examining it obliquely, as a relic, with curiosity.

He had had his face smacked earlier in the day, as well. How much longer was his face going to go on being smacked? Here was this Russian still there. There was the chance of an affair. A duel—a duel, for a change, in our civilized life; c’était une idée.

Who was the girl the Russian kept mentioning?[250] Was she that girl he had been telling them about who had a man-servant? Kreisler was a Frei-Herr? The Russian had referred to him as “my friend the Frei-Herr.”

“Herr Kreisler does not wish to take further measures to ensure himself some form of satisfaction,” the Russian said monotonously.

“There is always the police for drunken blackguards,” Soltyk answered.

“If you please! That is not the way! It is not usually so difficult to obtain satisfaction from a gentleman.”

“But then I am not a gentleman in the sense that your friend Kreisler is.”

“Perhaps not, but a blow on the face?”

The little Russian said “blow on the face” in a soft inviting way, as though it were a titbit with powers of fascination of its own.

“But it is most improper to ask me to stand here wrangling with you,” he next said.

“You please yourself.”

“I am merely serving my friend Herr Kreisler. Will you oblige me by indicating a friend of yours with whom I can discuss this matter?”

The waiter who had brought in the card again approached their table. This time he presented Soltyk with a note, written on the café paper and folded in four.

Tarr had been watching what was going on with as much interest as his ruffled personal dignity would allow him to take. He did not believe in a duel. But he wondered what would happen, for he was certain that Kreisler would not let this man alone until something had happened. What would he have done, he asked himself, in Soltyk’s place? He would have naturally refused to consider the idea of a duel as a possibility. If you had to fight a duel with any man who liked to hit you on the head—Kreisler, moreover, was not a man with whom a duel need be fought. He was in a weak position in that way, in spite of the additional blacking on his boots. Tarr[251] himself, of course, could have taken refuge in the fact that Englishmen do not duel. But what would have been the next step, this settled, had he been in Soltyk’s shoes? Kreisler was waiting at the door of the café. If his enemy got up and went out, at the door he would once more have his face smacked. His knowledge of Kreisler convinced him that............