“I wish I were! Perhaps I am! But in a few words, Tredegar, if I convince you that I have been wronged to a degree unendurable by an honorable man, will you then become the bearer of my challenge to the base caitiff who has so foully abused me?”
“Why certainly I will, Alick. In any just cause I will stand by you to the very death! But is it really as bad as you think?”
“‘As bad as I think?’ Listen.”
“Sit down, Alick, and tell me all about it,” said Tredegar, rolling towards his visitor a comfortable arm-chair.
Alick dropped into the offered seat.
Tredegar perched himself on the corner of the dressing-table.
“I will put a case and let you judge for yourself. Suppose that you were devoted to a beautiful, amiable and accomplished woman, who was at least equally devoted to yourself——”
“Heavens! If I could suppose that I should be in paradise!”
“No levity, if you please, Francis.”
“Beg pardon. I will be as grave as a rejected lover, or—as an accepted one!”