"Yes."
"At the last minute?"
"At the last minute."
Don Luis laughed and said:
"I knew he would wait about and not give way until the crucial moment. You must have had a bad time of it, my poor Mazeroux, for of course you agreed with me from the start."
He kept on eating while he talked; and each mouthful seemed to bring back a little of his usual animation.
"Funny thing, hunger!" he said. "Makes you feel so light–headed. I must practise getting used to it, however."
"At any rate, Chief, no one would believe that you have been fasting for nearly forty–eight hours."
"Ah, that comes of having a sound constitution, with something to fall back upon! I shall be a different man in half an hour. Just give me time to shave and have a bath."
When he had finished dressing, he sat down to the
