Peabody stepped back from the impact of the insult as if it had been a physical blow. His lean brown cheeks were white under their sunburn. When he spoke it was with an interval between the words as he exerted his will to keep himself from bursting out with undignified anger.
"Who is your friend, sir?" he asked.
Davenant's shoulders lifted a trifle as he suddenly realized into what fresh trouble his hot temper had led him. But there was no going back now; the next development was as inevitable as a rainstorm.
"Captain Fane will act for me, I am sure," he said, and turned away, in obedience to the etiquette of the duel which demanded that he should not see his enemy again until they met upon the ground.
"Captain Fane," said Peabody. "May I have the pleasure of presenting Lieutenant Hubbard, first lieutenant of the United States ship Delaware?" Then he, too, turned away. Dupont was hurrying up, wringing his hands over this deplorable incident at his party, but Peabody brushed past him. All eyes in the room were upon him, but he only saw Anne, just as he had seen her once before, with her face outlined like a miniature against a background of mist. His acute tension relaxed as he met her eyes beneath their level brows, but the exhilaration of excitement still remained.
"Anne," he said, coming to her. "We shall have to go home."
As she looked up to him she had nothing to say to this husband of hers, who in the mad manner of men had imperiled everything she loved in the world for a few words. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do; these affairs of honor between men were something whose course no woman could divert in the slightest. Her eyes were moist.
"I'm sorry to have spoiled your party, dear," said Peabody, smiling down upon her. He was still too stupidly excited to appreciate how much she was hurt. Her lips trembled before she spoke.
"Let us go," she said.
When Peabody was getting his cloak Hubbard appeared, with his usual air of quiet efficiency. He was accustomed to handling — or participating in — affairs of honor.
"Dawn tomorrow," he said. "On the edge of the cane-brake across the stream from your house. I know the place — it's barely half a mile from there. Pistols at twelve paces. We'll use mine — they're London made and reliable. I have to go back to the ship for them, and to tell Downing and Murray — we'll need another second. May I spend the night at your house? — I've still got some details to settle when I get back."
"I'll give orders to that effect," said Peabody.
Back in the room where the mosquito net reared its vast dome over the big bed Peabody put his arms out to Anne. He saw that she was weeping now, and for the first time misgivings asserted themselves, though unavailingly in the face of his other emotions. That Old Testament conscience of his was grimly satisfied that he should have put this undeserved happiness of his at the disposition of Providence, and he knew now that he was no coward.
"Darling!" he said — the endearments which he had never used before came more readily now.
Anne looked at him, and both her eyebrows and her shoulders went up a little. There was no predicting what this husband of hers would do next, nor how he would feel about it. In seven short hours his life would be in terrible danger — danger that made her feel sick when she thought about it, and yet here he was unmoved. She fought back her tears; as she knew, she would not be able to divert him a hair's breadth from the course mapped out for him at dawn next day. If she were weak now she would do no good and just possibly might do harm. She must be strong, and she took a grip on herself and was strong — Peabody in his blindness knew nothing of it at the time.
As they kissed, a knock on the door made them draw apart. It was Anne's colored maid still displaying evident signs of excitement over the affair, about which the news had spread like wildfire round the island.
"Ma'ame d'Ernee," she said.
"Madame d'Ernee? To see me?" asked Anne.
"Yes, mamselle."
"I'll come," said Anne.
Peabody was philosophic about it. He sat down in the bedroom and ran over in his mind the arrangements necessitated by tomorrow's affair. His will — he had made that, and had it witnessed, directly after his marriage. He had given orders about Hubbard, and a bedroom on the ground floor was being prepared for him. He had a black stock and cravat to wear tomorrow, so that he would show no linen, and he would fight in his second-best coat without the epaulettes. Anne's aunt had probably come to see if with Anne she could not devise some means of stopping the affair — she ought to have more sense, but she was interested in Davenant, of course. Anne would not presume to meddle, naturally.
Anne came in again. There was a queer twist to her smile and an inscrutable lift to one eyebrow. But her expression softened as her eyes met his, and she melted towards him. She came warmly into his arms, and Peabody quite forgot to ask her what on earth Madame d'Ernee had wanted. He did not want to know about anything, not with Anne's lips against his and this sweet passion and purity of conscience consuming him.
Later he slept heavily enough not to feel her slip away from his side and under the mosquito netting; he turned once and found she was gone, smiled in his half-awakeness without any suspicion at all. He did not wake far enough to think about the morrow, and when, an hour before dawn, the maid came in to waken them Anne was back at his side.
Chapter XXII
HUBBARD was positively masterful.
"Don't walk too fast, sir," he said, and the "sir" was a most perfunctory addition. "We can't have you arriving out of breath."
He looked at his watch, and up at the brightening sky from which the rain still dripped monotonously.
"Just right," he said. "We don't want to wait when we get there. And no gentleman would keep the other side waiting, although I've known it done."
They passed a small gang of Negroes on their way to work in the fields, and the dark faces all turned to see this odd spectacle of two white men on foot in the rain before dawn. A babble of talk burst from the group — every member of it had heard the gossip about the quarrel between the English captain and the American captain, and what was to happen this morning.
"It's round this corner, sir," said Hubbard. "You can walk a bit slower — if you please, sir. Damn this rain."
Round the corner Murray was waiting, and Downing with a big case of instruments resting on the ground at his feet. Their faces were pale in the brightening dawn. And here came Fane, with Doctor Clarke beside him, and in the background Peabody caught a glimpse of Davenant and Maitland.
"You're sure those gloves are comfortable, sir?" said Hubbard. "Better to show white than have an awkward grip on the trigger."
"They're all right," said Peabody, passing the forefinger of his left hand between the fingers of his right. They were a pair of dark doeskin gloves lent by Hubbard; only his face would catch the light now that he had on his black stock and cravat and blue trousers. Fane was approaching, and Hubbard went to meet him, uncovering and bowing with the utmost formality. Downing and Clarke went off with their instruments into a nook in the canebrake out of the line of fire, leaving Murray alone. He caught Peabody's eye and smiled a sickly smile, so sickly that it made Peabody grin — the Baltimore lad was so acutely nervous, and this period of waiting was trying him hard, and his clothes were soaked.
Hubbard took the case of pistols from under his arm and opened it before Fane. He slid a ramrod down each barrel; each pistol was charged.
"I loaded 'em last night in case of rain this morning, sir," he said. "I'll draw the charges if you like — "
"Please do not trouble, sir," said Fane.
"Would you please be so kind as to keep off the rain while I prime, sir?" said Hubbard.