"I am the most miserable brute on the face of the earth," he replied. "I think it would have been far better for me had I been shot back there."
"Look here, Glenbarth," I said with some anger, "if you talk nonsense in this manner, I shall begin to think that you are not accountable for your actions. What on earth have you to be so unhappy about?"
"You know very well," he answered gloomily.
"You are making yourself miserable because Miss Trevor will not marry you," I said. "You have not asked her, how therefore can you tell?"
"But she seems to prefer Don Martinos," he went on.
"Fiddlesticks!" I answered. "I'm quite certain she hasn't thought of him in that way. Now, I am going to talk plainly to you. I have made up my mind that we leave to-day for Rome. We shall spend a fortnight there, and you should have a fair opportunity of putting the question to Miss Trevor. If you can't do it in that time, well, all I can say is, that you are not the man I took you for. You must remember one thing, however: I'll have no more of this nonsense. It's all very well for a Spanish braggart to go swaggering about the world, endeavouring to put bullets into inoffensive people, but it's not the thing for an English gentleman."
"I'm sorry, Dick. Try to forgive me. You won't tell Lady Hatteras, will you?"
"She knows it already," I answered. "I don't fancy you would get much sympathy from her. Try for a moment to picture what their feelings would have been—mine may be left out of the question—if you had been lying dead on the beach yonder. Think of your relations at home. What would they have said and thought? And for what?"
"Because he insulted me," Glenbarth replied. "Was I to put up with that?"
"You should have treated him with the contempt he merited. But there, do not let us discuss the matter any further. All's well that ends well; and I don't think we shall see much more of the Don."