Quentin felt all that the studied insult implied; the blood rushed back upon his aching heart, and he grew very pale. The conviction now that his position was different, that Cosmo wished by deliberate insolence to provoke and destroy him, rushed upon his mind, and gave him coolness and reflection, so he said, quietly—
"I shall not report your kind suggestion to Sir John Moore; but I presume I may now withdraw?"
"Sir," resumed Cosmo, starting from his chair pale with passion, as he seemed now to have a legitimate and helpless object on which to wreak his bitterness of soul—a bitterness all the deeper that it was now inflamed by wine—"sir, I refer to General Lord Paget if your bearing has not something of a mutinous sneer in it?"
"My smile might, Colonel Crawford; but not bearing, be assured of that."
"Sir, what the devil do you mean? Is it to bandy words with me? You hear him, Paget?" said Cosmo, incoherently, and purple alike with fury and a sense of shame at the exhibition he was making; "you hear him?"
"I have no intention of insulting you," urged Quentin, anxious only to begone.
"Insults are never suspected by me, but when I know they are intended, as I feel they are now. Even your presence here is an insult! Now, sir, do you understand me, and your resource—your resource—do you understand that—eh?"
"For God's sake, Crawford! are you mad?" interposed Lord Paget; "what the devil is up between you?"
"More than I can tell you, Paget."
"With this mere lad, and you a man of the world!"