The Prince’s face did blench as the chaplain translated the words delivered by the Admiral in a voice that was like a volley of grape shot; and after a few minutes’ conference with the Marchese, he replied courteously, but with a quiet ring of sarcasm:—
“If you will allow me, your Excellency, I will go with you when you return to your ship, and have my throat cut by Signor Hardres at once. The solution you pronounce is, I see, the correct one. Unfortunately I had no precedent to go upon. A Sicilian, in Signor Hardres’s place, would have killed me, as I would have killed him. I am at your service whenever you are ready to go.”
The Admiral’s face cleared of wrath like the sky after a thunderstorm: he was ever the most generous of men, but he had a look of mystification when Donna Rusidda, who had been present all the while, but had taken no part in the proceedings till this moment, said:
“Uncle Marchese, you have lived many years, and are referred to by every one on matters of manners and breeding.” He bowed. “What happens when a lady, having begun by accepting the suit of a cavalier, sees something to make her change her mind and desire to be relieved of the suit?”
“Such a thing was never done in my time, Donna niece, by a lady of a family like ours, but tradition is clear upon the point: the quarrel then belongs to the rejected suitor, who would have the right to ask a gentleman’s satisfaction from the kinsman to whom it fell to represent her. But he would also have the right to be indifferent.”
“If, then, I say, and I swear by my patron, Santa Rosalia, that it is true, that I am no longer willing to receive the suit of Signor Hardres, the quarrel is, as you say, his, and it will be for him to demand the fresh duello, not for the Prince, my brother.”
“It is so,” said the Marchese.
“Then, Signor Admiral,” said the girl, with a most beautiful expression on her face—which I, not knowing the Sicilians so well as I did afterwards, imagined to express a woman’s holy joy in peace-making—“will you have it conveyed to Signor Hardres that I wish to withdraw my acceptance of his suit, and that the quarrel is now his own.”
“I can answer for it that your brother will hear no more from him, madam,” replied the Admiral, stooping very low to kiss her hand—for he, too, used the same interpretation as I. “And then, your Excellency,” he said, bowing to the Marchese, “and your Highness,” bowing to the Prince, “as I have full power to represent Lieutenant Hardres, we may regard this incident as at an end. And now, madam,” he added, looking at Donna Rusidda straight in the face with his most gracious smile, “I shall, if you invite me again, partake of this excellent entertainment, for I have not yet supped.”
The invitation was, of course, graciously repeated; and I was glad to see that the Prince had some of his sister’s graciousness, for he took one of the trays—the servants had been sent from the room—and brought it, saying, “Hungry work, your Excellency!” And the smile with which he said this, and the smile with which the Admiral received it, laid the foundation of the friendship which, until its tragical termination, played so conspicuous a part in the Admiral’s life.