“Sir Percy is in the right, Vicomte,” here interposed Lord Antony, laying a friendly hand on the young Frenchman’s shoulder. “It would hardly be fitting that you should commence your career in England by provoking him to a duel.”
For a moment longer the Vicomte hesitated, then with a slight shrug of the shoulders directed against the extraordinary code of honour prevailing in this fog-ridden island, he said with becoming dignity,—
“Ah, well! if Monsieur is satisfied, I have no griefs. You, mi’lor’, are our protector. If I have done wrong, I withdraw myself.”
“Aye, do!” rejoined Blakeney, with a long sigh of satisfaction, “withdraw yourself over there. Demmed excitable little puppy,” he added under his breath. “Faith, Ffoulkes, if that’s a specimen of the goods you and your friends bring over from France, my advice to you is, drop ’em ’mid Channel, my friend, or I shall have to see old Pitt about it, get him to clap on a prohibitive tariff, and put you in the stocks an you smuggle.”
“La, Sir Percy, your chivalry misguides you,” said Marguerite, coquettishly, “you forget that you yourself have imported one bundle of goods from France.”
Blakeney slowly rose to his feet, and, making a deep and elaborate bow before his wife, he said with consummate gallantry,—
“I had the pick of the market, Madame, and my taste is unerring.”
“More so than your chivalry, I fear,” she retorted sarcastically.
“Odd’s life, m’dear! be reasonable! Do you think I am going to allow my body to be made a pincushion of, by every little frog-eater who don’t like the shape of your nose?”
“Lud, Sir Percy!” laughed Lady Blakeney as she bobbed him a quaint and pretty curtsey, “you need not be afraid! ’Tis not the men who dislike the shape of my nose.”