“If I were inclined to be suspicious, which I trust I am not, I might wonder why you particularly wish to be quit of me, Mr. Page,” he said mildly.
“I don’t, on my own account,” I denied bluntly. “But I am telling you the truth—for your own good. Have you ever fought a duel, Lieutenant?”
He admitted that he had, and had come off second best. But it was a mere point of honor with a brother officer, and no life-and-death affair.
“Then you are committed to the code? You think a challenged man should fight?”
“I think a challenged gentleman will always fight,” he corrected.
I hooked an arm over the back of my chair and looked him full in the face.
“Let me tell you something, Mr. Castner—always for your own good, you will remember. Yesterday, about this time or a little later, I slapped a man’s face. He sent his friend to my friend, and this morning at daybreak, as I have reason to suppose, a party of three which should have been a party of four, met in a grassy cove on the riverside just below the town of Nyack. At that hour, or possibly a short time afterward, I was breakfasting very pleasantly here with you, as you will recall.”
He was evidently shocked, as I meant him to be, and for a little while he was unable to find the fitting word. When he did find it, it was a most gentlemanly word, I had to admit.
“You have your reasons for telling me this, Mr. Page, and you will pardon me if I say that they do not appear upon the surface. I will ask you one question—which you may answer or not, as it pleases you: Does Sir Henry Clinton know of this?”
“I told him, as nearly as I can remember, in much the same words.”