“Good God, could I?”
“Yes, she will go off with anyone who does so. Oh, Gideon, I am glad you have come! I have so much to tell you!” He refilled the glasses, and sat down opposite his cousin. “No sooner am I clear of one scrape than I fall into another! Harriet had to rescue me from the Roundhouse here only this afternoon, and you would not believe what an odious reputation I have in Hertfordshire!”
“Would I not? You forget that I sought for you in Hitchin! But begin at the beginning, Gilly! By the by, I sent that young fool, Matt, back to Oxford with a flea in his ear. He ought to be flogged for embroiling you in his silly starts!”
“Poor Matt, he did not embroil me: I embroiled myself. But how came he into the business?”
“Nettlebed recalled that he had been closeted with you the night before you disappeared, and went after him. I met the pair of them in Baldock. Never mind that now! Proceed with your story!”
Thus adjured, the Duke settled down to regale his cousin with the entire history of his adventures. Gideon interpolated so many questions, and laughed so much that the candles were burning low in their sockets before the Duke had ended the tale. Then he demanded to know Gideon’s share in it, and this amused him quite as much as his own part had amused Gideon. When he heard of Lord Lionel’s discovery of his ring in Gideon’s desk, he gave such a crack of mirth that a fellow-guest in the adjoining room thumped indignantly on the wall.
“Yes, excessively droll, no doubt!” said Gideon, thrusting a hand into his pocket, and bringing out the ring. He tossed it into the Duke’s hand. “Take your ill-omened bauble! And now, little cousin, I will break to you a trifle of knowledge you do not appear to have been informed of before! No action for breach of promise can lie against a minor.”
For a moment the Duke stared at him. Then he said blankly: “Do you mean that I did it all for nothing?”
“That is what I mean, Adolphus,” replied Gideon, grinning at him.
This struck the Duke as being so exquisitely humorous that the gentleman in bed in the next room was obliged to thump on the wall again.