"I shall have the honour to act as Mr. Holliday's second. Here is my card. I shall be at home all the evening."
Rupert now resumed his seat, while Captain Muller and his friend moved to the other end of the saloon. Here he was surrounded by a number of German officers, who endeavoured to dissuade him from fighting a duel in which the killing of his adversary would be condemned by the whole army as child murder.
"Child or not," he said ferociously, "he dies tomorrow. You think he was mad to insult me. It was conceit, not madness. His head is turned; a fencing master once praised his skill at fence, and he thinks himself a match for me--me! the best swordsman, though I say it, in the German army. No, I would not have forced a quarrel on him, for he is beneath my notice; but I am right glad that he has taken up the glove I meant to throw down to his fellow. In killing him I shall not only have punished the only person who has for many years ventured to insult Otto Muller, but I shall have done a service to a friend."
No sooner had Rupert regained his seat than Dillon exclaimed, "Rupert, I shall never forgive myself. Others think you are mad, but I know that you sacrifice yourself to save me.
"You did me an ill service, my lord," he said, turning to Lord Fairholm, "by holding me back when I would have taken my proper place. I shall never hold up my head again. But it will not be for long, for when he has killed Rupert I will seek him wherever he may go, and force him to kill me, too."
"My dear Dillon, I knew what I was doing," Lord Fairholm said. "It was clear that either he or you had to meet this German cutthroat."
"But," Dillon asked, in astonishment, "why would you rather that your friend Rupert should be killed than I?"
"You are not putting the case fairly," Lord Fairholm said. "Did it stand so, I should certainly prefer that you should run this risk than that Rupert should do so. But the case stands thus. In the first place, it is really his quarrel; and in the second, while it is certain that this German could kill you without fail, it is by no means certain that he will kill Rupert."
Dillon's eyes opened with astonishment.
"Not kill him! Do you think that he will spare him after the way he has been insulted before all of us?"