"Milor Spunyarn. I have the honour of addressing him?"
"Yes, it's quite right, that's me Please be seated."
The Frenchman sat himself down bolt upright.
"I suppose, Lord Spunyarn, that my visit is not unexpected. I had the honour to call upon your friend Monsieur Haggard, to demand satisfaction from him on the part of my friend, Monsieur Barbiche. You, I believe, were present at the whole affair. Monsieur Haggard has referred me to you as his friend."
Spunyarn bowed, stretched out his long legs towards the fire, and opening his cigarette case offered it to Monsieur de Kerguel.
"Won't you smoke?" he said.
A French gentleman in a new frock coat, on the most serious of all missions, the bearer of a hostile message to a man he has never met in his life before, is asked to smoke!
A crowd of strange thoughts passed through his mind. Are these Englishmen cowards? He drew himself up more stiffly than before, as he declined the offer.
"Have you breakfasted?" said his hospitable lordship, ignoring the gesture.