“And I,” said the Duke, “prefer to be known to you for the moment as ‘Kit’—simply ‘Kit,’ at your service.”
It was no sooner spoken than he realized his blunder. It would be this very anonymity, the presumptive second party to the liaison, whom the husband, being here, would be in search of. Chesterfield, in fact, showed his instant sense of the admission. He let out a laugh that was wholly diabolical.
“Ha-ha!” cried he. “Damned and condemned, thou dog, out of thine own mouth!”
Conscious that all this time they were objects of some curious attention on the part of the nearest company, he thought it well now to subdue his voice, and affect a nonchalant manner.
“Mr. Kit,” said he, in an undertone, “you will hardly continue, in face of that confession, your pretence of innocence, nor, by denying me the satisfaction I demand here and now, force me to the necessity of whipping you, like the hound you are, in public. There are level spaces in the wildernesses beyond, and something of a rising moon, sufficient for the business we have in hand. Will you walk with me, sir—or——”
“Without admitting anything,” said his Highness, very haughty and wroth, “or condescending to further remonstrance, I answer to your effrontery as it deserves. It must be chastised, at whatever cost to the truth. Follow me, sir,” and he stalked off in high choler.
He was horribly perplexed, nevertheless, though for the moment so offended as half to mean the bellicosity he threatened. But reflection soon cooled him of that temper, and he recognized that, if nothing else intervened, there would be no alternative for him but to make himself known, at the critical pass, to his adversary.
The two gentlemen disappeared in the direction of the thickets.
And so, leaving them, we will return to Hamilton and his green bow.
The harper harped his sweetest, and the lady stood and listened entranced. She seemed as one fascinated, half hypnotized, oblivious of the soft reproaches her companion kept whispering in her ear. She paid no heed whatever to his babble, but always her gaze was fixed on the long swaying form of the musician and the melancholy-wrapt eyes of him, lost, like her own, to all outer influences and impressions, and wholly absorbed in the visions conjured up of his unconscious soul. And when at length he ended on a triumphant chord, she sighed, and seemed to come awake, and, first joining in the applause with her little hands, plucked off her vizard, being quite carried away by her feelings, and, waving it in the air, cried “Brava!” in a manner to make the people about her laugh.