“Miss Challoner, I must once more request you to be seated,” said milor’, bored. “Lord Vidal will lay violent hands on neither of us.” He looked across at the serving-man. “I do not in the least understand why you are standing there goggling at me,” he said. “Admit his lordship.”
The servant withdrew; Miss Challoner, standing still beside her chair, looked down rather helplessly at her host. She wondered what would happen when my lord came in. A clock had chimed midnight somewhere in the distance not long since; it was a very odd hour at which to be found supping with a strange gentleman, however venerable he might be, and she feared that the Marquis’s jealous temper might flare up with disastrous results. There seemed to be no hope of making her host understand that the Marquis in a black rage was scarcely responsible for his actions. The gentleman was maddeningly imperturbable: he was even smiling a little.
She heard a quick step in the hall; Vidal’s voice said sharply: “Stable my horse, one of you. Where is this Englishman?”
Miss Challoner laid her hand on the back of her chair, and grasped it as though for support. The servant said: “I will announce m’sieur.”
He was cut short. “I’ll announce myself,” said his lordship savagely.
A moment later the door was flung open, and the Marquis strode in, his fingers hard clenched on his riding-whip. He cast one swift smouldering glance across the room, and stopped dead, a look of thunderstruck amazement on his face. “Sir!” he gasped.
The gentleman at the head of the table looked him over from his head to his heels. “You may come in, Vidal,” he said suavely.
The Marquis stayed where he was, one hand still on the doorknob. “You here!” he stammered. “I thought ...”
“Your reflections are quite without interest, Vidal. No doubt you will shut that door in your own good time.”
To Miss Challoner’s utter astonishment the Marquis shut it at once, and said stiffly: “Your pardon, sir.” He tugged at his cravat. “Had I known that you were here — ”