“Thank you for your admissions,” said Harold, still more quietly. “So it seems that it is all true; it seems that you are using your wealth to harass this unfortunate gentleman and his daughter until you drive them into consenting to this marriage. That being so, I wish to tell you privately what I shall probably take some opportunity of telling you in public, namely, that a man who does these things is a cur, and worse than a cur, he is a blackguard, and you are such a man, Mr. Cossey.”
Edward Cossey’s face turned perfectly livid with fury, and he drew himself up as though to spring at his adversary’s throat.
The Colonel held up his hand. “Don’t try that on with me,” he said. “In the first place it is vulgar, and in the second you have only just recovered from an accident and are no match for me, though I am over forty years old. Listen, our fathers had a way of settling their troubles; I don’t approve of that sort of thing as a rule, but in some cases it is salutary. If you think yourself aggrieved it does not take long to cross the water, Mr. Cossey.”
Edward Cossey looked puzzled. “Do you mean to suggest that I should fight a duel with you?” he said.
“To challenge a man to fight a duel,” answered the Colonel with deliberation, “is an indictable offence, therefore I make no such challenge. I have made a suggestion, and if that suggestion falls in with your views as,” and he bowed, “I hope it may, we might perhaps meet accidentally abroad in a few days’ time, when we could talk this matter over further.”
“I’ll see you hanged first,” answered Cossey. “What have I to gain by fighting you except a very good chance of being shot? I have had enough of being shot as it is, and we will play this game out upon the old lines, until I win it.”
“As you like,” said Harold. “I have made a suggestion to you which you do not see fit to accept. As to the end of the game, it is not finished yet, and therefore it is impossible to say who will win it. Perhaps you will be checkmated after all. In the meanwhile allow me again to assure you that I consider you both a cur and a blackguard, and to wish you good-morning.” And he bowed himself out, leaving Edward Cossey in a curious condition of concentrated rage.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE COLONEL GOES TO SLEEP
The state of mind is difficult to picture which could induce a peaceable christian-natured individual, who had moreover in the course of his career been mixed up with enough bloodshed to have acquired a thorough horror of it, to offer to fight a duel. Yet this state had been reached by Harold Quaritch.
Edward Cossey wisely enough declined to entertain the idea, but the Colonel had been perfectly in earnest about it. Odd as it may appear in the latter end of this nineteenth century, nothing would have given him greater pleasure than to put his life against that of his unworthy rival. Of course, it was foolish and wrong, but human nature is the same in all ages, and in the last extremity we fall back by instinct on those methods which men have from the beginning adopted to save themselves from intolerable wrong and dishonour, or, be it admitted, to bring the same upon others.