He felt the cold, sarcastic sting in her tone, and knew himself revealed and dismissed from that moment.
Chesterfield clinched and convulsed his fists in impotent desperation. “But—but——” he shouted, and turned on his wife again. “Kit was to wear a scarf, I tell you.”
“No, a bow,” said she.
“And nothing else, madam?” he cried.
“There would be no disputing Kit’s sex in that case,” said Hamilton pleasantly. And then he laughed. “But there are still two potential Kits in the field—and both unmasked. Why not ask them?”
Obviously it was the simple course. Chesterfield pounced on the Duke—
“You hear? Kit or the devil, man—whichever you are, confess yourself.”
His Highness hesitated—it was an awkward moment for him—and succumbed, finally, to the tyranny of circumstance.
“I could claim my privilege, and refuse, sir,” said he, “were it not that by persisting in this disguise the fair fame of an innocent lady might appear to lack its vindication. I took her, if not for another, at least not for herself,” and he pulled off his vizard in his turn.
“The Duke of York!” muttered the Earl, falling back a little, with a stupefied look; while Kate, on her part, her face flushing crimson, bent her eyes on the ground.