“No, I didn’t say that; on the contrary, he was presented to her the first time the evening I was at the house. I saw that young silk-haired coxcomb, Gustave Rameau, introduce him to her. You don’t perhaps know Rameau, editor of the Sens Commun—writes poems and criticisms. They say he is a Red Republican, but De Mauleon keeps truculent French politics subdued if not suppressed in his cynical journal. Somebody told me that the Cicogna is very much in love with Rameau; certainly he has a handsome face of his own, and that is the reason why she was so rude to the Russian Prince X——-.”
“How rude! Did the Prince propose to her?”
“Propose! you forget—he is married. Don’t you know the Princess? Still there are other kinds of proposals than those of marriage which a rich Russian prince may venture to make to a pretty novelist brought up for the stage.”
“Bevil!” cried Graham, grasping the man’s arm fiercely, “how dare you?”
“My dear boy,” said Bevil, very much astonished, “I really did not know that your interest in the young lady was so great. If I have wounded you in relating a mere on dit picked up at the Jockey Club, I beg you a thousand pardons. I dare say there was not a word of truth in it.”
“Not a word of truth, you may be sure, if the on dit was injurious to Mademoiselle Cicogna. It is true, I have a strong interest in her; any man—any gentleman—would have such interest in a girl so brilliant and seemingly so friendless. It shames one of human nature to think that the reward which the world makes to those who elevate its platitudes, brighten its dulness, delight its leisure, is Slander! I have had the honour to make the acquaintance of this lady before she became a ‘celebrity,’ and I have never met in my paths through life a purer heart or a nobler nature. What is the wretched on dit you condescend to circulate? Permit me to add:
“‘He who repeats a slander shares the crime.’”
“Upon my honour, my dear Vane,” said Bevil seriously (he did not want for spirit), “I hardly know you this evening. It is not because duelling is out of fashion that a man should allow himself to speak in a tone that gives offence to another who intended none; and if duelling is out of fashion in England, it is still possible in France.—Entre nous, I would rather cross the Channel with you than submit to language that conveys unmerited insult.”
Graham’s cheek, before ashen pale, flushed into dark red. “I understand you,” he said quietly, “and will be at Boulogne to-morrow.”
“Graham Vane,” replied Bevil, with much dignity, “you and I have known each other a great many years, and neither of us has cause to question the courage of the other; but I am much older than yourself—permit me to take the melancholy advantage of seniority. A duel between us in consequence of careless words said about a lady in no way connected with either, would be a cruel injury to her; a duel on grounds so slight would little injure me—a man about town, who would not sit an hour in the House of Commons if you paid him a thousand pounds a minute. But you, Graham Vane—you whose destiny it is to canvass electors and make laws—would it not be an injury to you to be questioned at the hustings why you broke the law, and why you sought another man’s life? Come, come! shake hands and consider all that seconds, if we chose them, would exact, is said, every affront on either side retracted, every apology on either side made.”