Sir Jasper fell once more to his ursine perambulation, and Stafford, yawning again, flicked over a page. He had not reached the bottom of it, however, before Sir Jasper's form returned between him and the moonlight.
"What," said the injured husband, "what if they should have taken another road?"
"Then," cried Stafford, closing his book with a snap between both his palms, tossing it on to the table and stretching himself desperately, "I shall only have to fight you myself for this most insufferably dull evening that you have made me spend, when I was due at more than one rendezvous, and had promised pretty Bellairs the first minuet."
"It shall be pistols," said Sir Jasper, following his own thoughts with a sort of gloomy lust, "pistols, Tom. For either he or I shall breathe our last to-night."
"Pistols with all my heart," said Stafford, stopping his pipe with his little finger. "Only do, like a good fellow, make up your mind—just for the sake of variety. I think the last time we considered the matter, we had decided for this"—describing a neat thrust at Sir Jasper's waistcoat through the window with the long stem of his churchwarden. "There's more blood about it, Jasper," he suggested critically.
"True," murmured the other, again all indecision. "But pistols at five paces——."
"Well—yes, there's a charm about five paces, I admit," returned the second with some weariness, dropping back again into his chair. "And we can reload, you know."
"If I fall," said Sir Jasper, with the emotion which generally overtakes a man who contemplates a tragic contingency to himself, "be gentle with her. She has sinned, but she was very dear to me."
"She'll make a deuced elegant widow," said Stafford, musingly, after a little pause, during which he had conjured up Lady Standish's especial points with the judgment of a true connoisseur.
"You must conduct her back to her home," gulped Sir Jasper, a minute later, slowly thrusting in his head again. "Alack, would that I had never fetched her thence.... Had you but seen her, when I wooed and won her, Tom! A country flower, all innocence, a wild rose.... And now, deceitful, double-faced!"