“Well, Gaywood, what’s all this?” demanded Lord Lionel. “If you want Sale, he is here, and will no doubt be glad to see you. I see no occasion for these stable-manners you young men delight in assuming. Put down your hat and coat, and do not give me any of your black looks!”
Lord Gaywood was in a towering rage, but this reception from one of whom he stood in the liveliest awe acted as a check upon him. He stammered: “I didn’t know you were here, sir!”
“I daresay you might not, though what that has to say to anything I know not! Come in, Sale is in here. Gilly, here is Gaywood in some nonsensical pucker!”
The Duke took the door-handle in his own hand. “Yes, sir, so I see.”
The Viscount rolled a fiery eye at him, and said with painstaking civility: “I must beg the favour of a word in private with yon, my lord Duke!”
“Certainly,” replied the Duke. “Come in!”
Lord Lionel’s brows shot up. “Now, what’s the matter between you two?” he asked. “I’ll have no quarrelling here, understand! Don’t put on airs to be interesting, Gaywood, for they don’t impress me!”
Lord Gaywood ignored him contemptuously. “I said, in private, my lord Duke!”
Lord Lionel began to look rather grim. He turned, as though to come back into the room, but found that the Duke’s hand had been laid detainingly on his arm.”
“If you please, sir!” the Duke said.
“Now, Gilly, I don’t know what may be amiss, but I am not going to permit you—” He stopped, meeting the Duke’s eyes. “Oh, very well!” he shrugged. “Settle it between you! You will not do anything foolish, my boy!”
He went off, and the Duke, still holding the door, looked across the room at his cousin. “Gideon!”
Captain Ware grinned at him. “Content yourself with your signal victory over my parent, Adolphus! Nothing short of physical violence will remove me, and you would be very unwise to attempt anything of that nature, you know!”
The Viscount achieved a sneer. “Hide behind Gideon if you choose!” he said. “You will not thus escape me!”
“You know, Charlie, when you have gamed away all your fortune, you may take to the boards and be sure of success!” said Gideon admiringly.
“Oh, be quiet, Gideon!” said the Duke wearily. “I wish you will go away! What is it, Gaywood? Have you come to offer me an apology? I promise you, you owe me one! If I were not about to be married to your sister I should be sorely tempted to call you to book! You are a curst nuisance!”
“You call me to book!” gasped Gaywood. “By God, if that don’t beat all! You foist your bit of muslin onto my sister—and I can tell you I was within an ace of calling you out for that alone! and you—”
“Belinda is not, and never was, my bit of muslin, and if you were not a rattle-pated fool you would know it!”
“Doing it a trifle too brown, my lord Duke! Do you take me for a gudgeon?”
“Good God, yes!” replied the Duke. “I have taken you for agudgeon any time these past ten years!”
“Now, byJupiter, that’s too much!” exploded the Viscount, starting forward.
He found his passage barred by Gideon’s broad shoulder. “Oh, no, my boy!” said Gideon. “Nothing of that sort. You’d best take a damper!”
“Gideon, will you have the goodness to allow me to manage my own affairs?” said his cousin.
Gideon looked at him for a moment, and then stepped back. “As you wish, Adolphus!”
“I am obliged to you. Now, Gaywood, we’ll make an end to this nonsense, if you please, for I have quite come to the end of my patience!”
“You served me the shabbiest trick, Sale, and by God, you shall answer for it! You’re a damned dog in the manager, sir! You did not want the girl yourself, but you could not bear that anyone else should have her! So you—”
“On the contrary, I have given her into the care of the one man alive who does truly want her!” retorted the Duke.
“Don’t try to bamboozle me with that tale! I make no doubt you have her hidden away somewhere!” said the Viscount furiously. “Where is she?”
“Oh, in the arms of that Somerset bumpkin, of course!”
The Viscount stared at him suspiciously. “She is, is she? I should like to know who the devil gave you the right to meddle in my affairs!”
“I do not care a button for your affairs,” replied the Duke. “It was Belinda’s affairs that were my concern. You knew the truth, for Harriet told you it! How dared you, Gaywood, try to seduce a girl under my protection?”
“Seduce her! That’s a loud one!” ejaculated his lordship with a short bark of laughter. “Much you know of it! Why, she fell into my hand as readily as any ripe plum!”
A gleam of amusement shone in the Duke’s eyes. “Did she so?” he said dryly. “But not so readily, I fancy, that she could be persuaded to go with you until she had sent you running up Milsom Street in search of a purple gown!”
The wanton provocation of this remark made Gideon open his eyes a little, and caused the smouldering flames of the Viscount’s wrath to leap up again. He flushed hotly, and almost audibly ground his teeth.
“You’ll answer to me for what you have done this day, my lord Duke!” he said. “Name your friends! They shall hear from mine!”
Gideon moved suddenly, as though again he would have stepped between them. The Duke flung out a hand. “Be quiet! Do you imagine I stand in need of abodyguard? So you would like to call me out, Gaywood! Famous!”
“You dare not refuse to give me satisfaction!” Gaywood declared.
“Satisfaction! You fool, if I went out with you, much satisfaction you would get from the encounter! I own, there was a moment today when I would willingly have met you, yes, and have put a bullet through you! Had you not been Harriet’s brother—But you are her brother, and though you may forget it I shall not!”
“I’m not afraid of your damned marksmanship,” said Gaywood, white with anger. “You’ll accept my challenge, Sale!”
“He will not meet you,” Gideon interposed. “No one but a madman like yourself would expect it of him!”
“Who made you my spokesman?” demanded the Duke. “I’ll meet you, Gaywood, and I will tell you just what will happen at that meeting! We shall fire at twenty-five paces, I in the air, you where you please!”
The Viscount appeared to fight for breath. “Delope? You would not! Why, I might kill you!”
“You are welcome to try!” retorted the Duke.
“I hardly dare to open my mouth,” drawled Gideon, “but there is much in what he says, Gaywood. I don’t reckon myself a mean shot, but I would think twice before I engaged in pistol-play with Sale. And you won’t hit him, you know. He is such a little fellow, and you are such a damnably bad shot!”
What the infuriated Viscount might have been goaded into replying to this was never known, for at that moment Tom bounced into the room, in an extremely muddied condition, and announced that he had been helping to dig out a badger. He then caught sight of Gaywood, and exclaimed: “Oh, Mr. Rufford, that’s the beau that ran off with Belinda! Did you know?”
“I thought as much!” said the Viscount, grasping Tom by the collar, and shaking him viciously. “Not content with the rest, you must needs set this whelp of yours to bubble me, Sale! By God, you might at least—”
“He did not!” interrupted Tom, struggling to free himself. “I thought of it myself, and I’m glad I hoaxed you, and I’ll do it again if ever I have the chance!”
“Gaywood, let that boy go!” the Duke said, grasping the Viscount’s wrist. “Your quarrel is with me, not with a schoolboy!”
“No, it ain’t!” declared Tom, twisting himself out of the Viscount’s slackened grip, and squaring up to him purposefully. “You’ll have to settle with me before you touch my Mr. Rufford!”
“That’s the spirit, bantam!” approved Gideon, much entertained. “No flourishing, now! Let’s see some of the homebrewed!”