“O, of honour!” said Chesterfield, with a sneer. But he released his hold. “You surprise me, on my word. But, being so, perhaps you will inform me, man of honour, where you would like to come with me to have your throat cut.”
“We will discuss the necessity of that,” said the Duke civilly, “when I know your name.”
“So particular?” mocked the other. “But will it not inform you sufficiently to be told that I am the husband of the lady you have just parted with?”
“Indeed, it informs me nothing,” replied the Duke most suavely.
“What! you dare to pretend to me that you know her not?”
“Sir,” said the Duke, “I would disdain to answer to your insolence were it not that there must be something in appearances which, it seems, justifies it in you. I cannot presume your name from that of the lady who has just vanished, because I do not know her.”
“You are lying to me, I know.”
“You deserve no explanation; which I vouchsafe, nevertheless, solely for her good credit’s sake. I admit I accosted the lady in question; but it was under a misapprehension, being misled by a certain token she wore in her dress, and for which I had been directed to look. My importunities are explained by my reluctance to believe that a coincidence so remarkable as the wearing of that same token by another was even conceivable.”
Truly a plausible defence; but there is a craft, as well as a credulity, in jealousy, and Chesterfield showed it.
“Well, sir,” said he, “I will take your word for’t on a condition; and that is that you return me your name for my own. I am the Earl of Chesterfield.”