Andreas handed the card to Will with a sardonic smile. “That wild fellow again,” he muttered. “I didn’t know he was in England. I suppose I must go down to the door to see him.”
But Will glanced at the name in profound dismay. It was an awkward moment. Heaven knew what might come of it. As he gazed and paused, all that Franz had said to him at the Criterion bar a year before recurred to his mind vividly. He seized Hausberger’s arm with a nervous clutch, and drew him a little aside. “Take care of this man Lindner,” he said in a warning whisper. “He doesn’t love you. He is not to be trusted. If I were you, I wouldn’t see him alone. He owes you a grudge. Ask him up here, and talk with him before us all and the ladies.”
“Did you know he was in London?” Andreas inquired, scarcely flinching.
“Yes; I met him by accident in Bond Street a year ago. I’ve been to hear him sing at the music hall where he works, and he came with Mr Wood and myself to the Duke of Edinburgh’s to see Sweet Maisie, one of my pieces. But he was breathing forth fire and slaughter against you, even then, for leaving him in the lurch that time at Meran. To tell you the truth, he’s a dangerous man in a dangerous mood; I can’t answer for what may happen if you go down alone to him.”
“Let me go down and fetch him,” Florian suggested, blandly. “The job would just suit me. I’m warranted to disarm the most truculent fool in Christendom with a smile and a word or two.”
To this middle course Andreas consented somewhat doubtfully. He knew Franz’s temper and his Tyrolese impetuosity; but, as a Tyroler himself, hot-hearted at core for all his apparent phlegm, he didn’t feel inclined to parley through an ambassador with a pretentious Robbler. However, a scene on the first night would be bad business. That touched a tender point. So he gave way ungraciously. Florian departed, full of importance at his post of envoy, and returned in a minute or two with the Robbler’s ultimatum. “He’s been drinking, I fancy,” he said, “and he’s very wild and excited; Montepulciano in his eye, Lacrima Christi in his gait, Falernian in his utterance. But he’ll come up if you like; only I thought, Rue, as it’s your box, I’d better ask you first whether you’d care to see him.”
“He isn’t drunk, is he?” Rue asked, shrinking back. “We couldn’t have a drunken man shown up into the box here.”
“Not more drunk than a gentleman should be,” Florian answered, airily. “He can walk and talk, and I think he can behave himself. But he’s a good deal flushed, and somewhat flustered, and he expresses a burning desire for Herr Hausberger’s heart-blood, in a guttural bass, with quite unbecoming ferocity.”
Rue shrank away with a frightened face. “Oh, don’t bring him up here!” she cried. “Please, Florian, don’t bring him up here. I’m so afraid of tipsy men; and you don’t really think he wants to murder Herr Hausberger?”
“Well, not exactly to murder him, perhaps,” Florian replied, with a tolerant and expansive smile; “that would be positively vulgar; but to fight him, no doubt; and, if possible, to put an end to him. The duel in one form or another, you see, is a most polite institution. We don’t call it murder in good Society. Lindner feels himself aggrieved—there’s a lady in the case—” and he gave an expressive side-glance over his shoulder towards Linnet, “so he desires to bury his knife to the hilt in the gentleman’s body whom, rightly or wrongly, he conceives to have acted ill towards him. Nothing vulgar in that you’ll allow: a most natural sentiment. Only, as Herr Hausberger’s friends in this little affair, we must strive our best to see that all things are done, as the apostle advises, decently and in order.”