It was not much of a point, but it settled him. There were more murmurs, and Mrs. Claudie said reproachfully: "You know you did refuse my invitation, Lord Potter. And if you did know who Mr. Howard was, it is not very friendly of you to come after all, and try to spoil our fun."
The Duchess of Somersault, who was a great enough lady not to stand in awe of anybody, and had already married off all her daughters, now intervened:
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Hezekiah Potter," she said in a loud clear voice. "Anybody would think this was a reception by the wife of a millionaire by the way you poke yourself in on it and try to start a vulgar brawl. I shall be very pleased to welcome Mr. Howard at any time to my van, and I am not in the habit of receiving adventurers there."
Such a bold, and, to me, almost overwhelming, offer of recognition from so great a lady naturally turned the tables completely in my favour. Lord Potter shrugged his shoulders, one of which could be plainly seen through the discoloured cloth of his filthy jacket, muttered something into his ragged beard, and shuffled off in the dust towards Culbut. Mrs. Claudie instantly collected a party of young people to throw at Sir Sigismund's cocoanuts; and the incident appeared to be completely at an end.
But I could see that people were talking about it for the rest of the afternoon, and as we made our way homewards later on, and I very much fear that Mrs. Claudie Chanticleer wept tears of disappointment when she retired to her railway arch that night, over this unfortunate interruption of what would otherwise have been the most talked-of assembly of the now waning season.
As far as I was concerned, I was made to feel that I had come out of my engagement with Lord Potter with credit. I had stood up to a great man, and he had been driven off the field by a great lady. I was even something of a lion for the rest of the afternoon, and if I had wished could have taken my place then and there as a popular addition to the dirty set, and enjoyed all the advantages of that enviable condition.
But Edward's gloomy brow, as he ranged apart with his hands in his pockets, warned me that there was trouble ahead, and I had not been too busily engaged with Lord Potter to miss the spectacle of excited newspaper reporters edging in amongst the spectators and busily taking down all that was said in their notebooks.
What was quite certain was that I could no longer expect to be able to hide such light as I might give forth under a bushel. It would be known all over the country to-morrow that I had been denounced as an adventurer, and accused of representing myself as coming from a place which I had never seen.
A nice young reporter, more enterprising than the rest, who had hurried off on their bicycles to hand in their copy, did try to interview me, and I wished I had been in a position to give him the information for his paper that he asked for. It was only for my address in the Highlands, and a statement of why and how I had come to Culbut, and would have settled the matter for me, if I had really been the completely misunderstood person that I was supposed to be.
But I had to send him away empty, and I am sorry to say that he was annoyed with me, and hinted in his account of the fracas that there was more in Lord Potter's charges than appeared on the surface.