There was a moment’s commotion. One or two in the room rose; but the dry, short-sighted stranger sat on, quietly rubbing his chin.
Nonplussed for the moment, as it seemed, by the absence of his weapon, Major Dalrymple gasped, hesitated—and sat down again. As he did so, some were aware of a blue streak across his forehead that remained there after his flush of passion had subsided.
“I stake a thousand pounds against that,” he said, with a sudden fall to intense quietness of intonation.
The incident passed, and the deal. There was a stern spirit of expectancy in the room. This was not “Whitelaw’s” way—either as regarded the outburst, or the nature of the declaration that had produced it.
Then, all in a moment, Sir Robert Linne had leaped up and flung his cards in Mr. Ladislaw’s face, and the major was on his feet again, stamping and declaiming.
The baronet’s victim, taken completely by surprise, started and fell over on his back, his chair splintering beneath him. The place was in an uproar at once—red and angry visages on all sides. Only Sir Robert stood placid with folded arms, smiling grimly down on the havoc he had wrought.
“I call all to witness,” screamed the major, panting and struggling in the arms of two who had seized him, “that I accepted my lord’s stake, but not his infernal insult. I have won the right of protection over an outraged lady, and I now call upon him to answer for his brutal abuse of her name in public”—and, despite his captors, he whipped up a glass of wine from the table, and dashed it at the stupid face of the lordling, who still sat, sullenly defiant of the spirit he had evoked. The glass cut his forehead and half-stunned him for the moment.
“Mr. Jephson,” cried the soldier, glaring round, and selecting one from the excited group about him—“you will do me the service to ac——”
The word snapped in his teeth like a pipe-stem. With a groan he sank upon the ground, and his face was purple from ear to ear.
An instant’s silence followed, then babble of voices and the pressing inward of the spectators around the fallen man. Lord Dunlone sat mopping his red forehead in foolish vacancy; and Sir Robert Linne strode over to Mr. Ladislaw, who had been helped to his feet and stood apart and alone.