But a moment sufficed for him to wrest the Lady from her assailant and to deliver her over to the care of Diana and the Duchess, who carried her swooning (whether with laughter or emotion ’twould be difficult to set down), to the Room.
In another second, taking his silver-fringed gloves from his pocket he threw them into the masked face of Sir Robin McTart.
The little Baronet, who had both temper and vanity, which brace now got the upperhand of his cowardice, and, believing that Lady Peggy’s eyes were upon him, that Sir Percy was at the bottom of the Thames, and with full foreknowledge that he could run away before the meeting could be arranged, caught the gloves as they struck and flung them back into their owner’s covered countenance.
“Take that! ’sdeath!” squeaked Sir Robin, now much the more valiant as he beheld the Vicar screwing his way toward him through the excited crowds.
“Unmask, and show yourself for who you are!” cried Percy, every one of his companions echoing:
“Unmask! Unmask! Unmask, or we’ll run ye!”
“Willingly,” responded the trembling gentleman from Kent, tugging at the slip-knot in his mask-string.
“I am Sir Robin McTart! Who, the devil, are you?”
“I am Sir Percy de Bohun!” replied his opponent, as both masks came off at the same instant, and the two confronted one another, staring with four eyes that fairly popped in their sockets.