noon while Mr. Quarles makes up his mind? Name your friends!”
Quarles rolled a hot eye round the circle. No one came forward. “I’ll act for myself since you’re all so shy,” he sneered.
Mr. Comyn, his sedateness quite unimpaired, rose from his seat. “Since it’s my Lord Vidal’s honour that is in question it will be wise to have a gentleman to act for you, sir,” he said.
“To hell with the lot of you!” swore Quarles. “I’ll act for myself.”
“Your pardon, sir,” returned Mr. Comyn smoothly, “but I think you must see that if you doubt his lordship’s good faith, your seconds should carefully examine these pistols, which I apprehend are his lordship’s own. In short, I offer myself at your disposal.”
“Obliged to you,” growled Quarles.
Vidal was leaning on a chair back. “That’s a mighty long speech,” he remarked, with just that faint suggestion of slurring his words together. “Is it to insult me, or not?”
“Such, my lord, is not at the moment my intention,” replied Mr. Comyn.
The Marquis laughed. “Didn’t know you had it in you. You’re devilish correct, ain’t you?”
“I trust I am conversant with the rules governing such affairs as these, my lord. Will you name your friends?”
The Marquis was still looking at him with an amused and not unkindly eye. “Charles, you might act for me,” he said, without turning his head.
Mr. Fox arose, sighing. “Oh, very well, Dominic, if you must behave so damned irregularly.” He went apart with Mr. Comyn, and they inspected the weapons with due solemnity, and pronounced them identical.
Lord Rupert pushed his way unceremoniously to his nephew’s side. “Go put your head in a bucket of water, Vidal!” he said. “Stap me if I ever heard the like of you to-night! Mind you, I don’t say the fellow don’t deserve to have a hole in him, but do the thing decently, my boy, that’s all I ask!” He broke off to hurl somewhat conflicting advice to Captain WraxalL “Move those candles a shade to the left, Wraxall. Must have the light fair to both.”
The table was pushed back. Mr. Fox and Mr. Comyn were measuring the paces.
The pistols were presented. My lord took his in what looked to be an alarmingly slack hold. Apparently his uncle did not think so, for he said urgently: “Don’t kill him, Dominic!”
The seconds stepped back, the word was given. My lord’s pistol hand jerked up swiftly; there was a flash and a report, followed almost instantly by an answering shot. Mr. Quarles’s bullet buried itself in the wall beyond my lord, and Mr. Quarles pitched forward on to his face.
The Marquis tossed his pistol to Mr. Fox. “Give ’em to my man, Charles,” he said, and turned away to pick up his snuff-box, and handkerchief.
“Damn you, Vidal, I believe you have killed him!” Rupert said angrily.
“I’m very nearly sure of it, dear uncle,” said the Marquis.
Mr. Comyn, on his knees beside the fallen man, looked up. “A surgeon should be fetched,” he said. “I do not think that life is extinct.”
“I must be more drunk than I knew, then,” remarked his lordship. “I’m sorry, Charles; I meant to make the place habitable for you.”
Lord Cholmondley started towards him. “Devil take you, Vidal, you’d best be gone. You’ve done enough for one night.”
“I thought so, certainly,” said the Marquis. “Mr. Comyn apparently disagrees.” He glanced at the clock. “Hell and damnation, it’s past five already!”
“You’re surely not driving to Newmarket now?” cried Captain Wraxall, appalled by his callousness.
“Why not?” said Vidal coolly.
Captain Wraxall sought for words, and found none. The Marquis turned on his heel and went out.
Chapter V
it was only a little past noon on the following day when her Grace of Avon, accompanied most unwillingly by Lord Rupert, first called at Vidal’s home. The Marquis’s major-domo responded to his lordship’s anxious look with the smallest of bows. Lord Rupert heaved a sigh of relief. One never knew what might be found in Vidal’s apartments.
“I want my son,” her grace stated flatly.
But it appeared that the Marquis had not returned from Newmarket.
“There, what did I tell you?” said Rupert. “Leave a note for him, my dear. The devil alone knows when he’ll be back, eh, Fletcher?”
“I have no precise knowledge myself, my lord.”
“I shall come back again later,” announced her grace.
“But, Leonie—”
“And again, and again, and again until he has returned,” said her grace obstinately.
She kept her word, but on her last visit, in full ball dress at seven in the evening, she declared that she would enter the house and await her son there.
Lord Rupert followed her weakly into the hall. “Ay, but I’m on my way to Devereaux’s card party,” he expostulated. “I can’t stay here all night!”
The Duchess flung out exasperated hands. “Well, go then!” she said. “I find you
“You always were an ungrateful chit,” complained his lordship. “Here am I dancing attendance on you the whole day, and all you can say is that you don’t need me.”
Leonie’s irrepressible dimple peeped out. “But it is quite true, Rupert; I do not need you. When I have seen Dominique I shall take a chair to my party. It is very simple.”
“No, you won’t,” said Rupert. “Not with those diamonds on you.” He followed her into the library, where a small fire burned, and struggled out of his greatcoat. “Where’s that fellow gone off to? Fletcher! What’s his lordship in the cellar that her grace would like?”
The suave Fletcher showed some small signs of perplexity at that. “I will endeavour, my lord ...”
The Duchess had cast off her cloak, and seated herself by the fire. “Ah, bah, I do not want your ratafia, me. I will drink a glass of port with you,
Lord Rupert scratched his head, tilting his wig slightly askew. “Oh, very well! But it’s not what I’d call a lady’s drink.”
“Me, I am not a lady,” announced her grace. “I have been very well educated, and I will drink port.”
Fletcher withdrew, quite impassive. His lordship remonstrated once more. “Y’know you mustn’t talk like that before servants, Leonie. Ton my soul—”
“If you like,” interrupted Leonie, “I will play piquet with you till Dominique comes!”
Dominic came an hour later. A sulky dashed up the street and stopped outside the house. Leonie flung down her cards, and ran to the window, pulling aside the heavy curtains, but was too late to catch a glimpse of her son. A groom was already driving the sulky away, and inside the house a door slammed, and Fletcher’s discreet voice sounded. A sharper one answered; a quick step trod in the hall, and Vidal came into the library.
He was pale, and his eyes were frowning and tired. Mud had generously splashed his breeches and plain buff coat, and his neckcloth was crumpled and limp. “
Leonie momentarily forgot her mission. She went to him, grasping the lapels of his coat. “Oh, you have not killed yourself! But tell me, Dominique, at once, did you get there in the time?”
His hands covered hers with a gesture rather mechanical.
“Yes, of course. But what are you doing here? Rupert, too? Is anything amiss?”
“Anything amiss,” exploded Rupert. “That’s rich! Ton my soul, that’s rich! Oh, there’s naught amiss, never fear! You’ve only killed that fellow Quarles and set the whole town in a roar.”
“Dead, is he?” said his lordship. He put Leonie from him, and walked to the table. “Well, I thought as much.”
“No, no, he is not dead!” Leonie said vehemently. “You shan’t say so, Rupert!”
“It don’t matter what I say,” responded my lord. “If he ain’t dead now he will be in a day’s time. You fool, Vidal.” The Marquis had poured himself out a glass of wine, but was looking down at the red liquid instead of drinking it. “Runners after me?”
