For a moment the Ambassador stared blankly at Wilfrid; then the truth burst upon him.
“Good God!” he gasped! “You don’t mean that—that——!”
“The Czar’s opponent is distant from you by no more than the length of a table.”
It would not be true to say that Lord St. Helens’s hair rose on end, but it very nearly accomplished that feat.
“I accepted the challenge to-night,” continued Wilfrid, “from a masked stranger, whose anger apparently had been kindled at seeing me receive a kiss from a certain lady. The fellow refused his name, but from his voice I took him to be Prince Ouvaroff. It seems now that I was wrong, and that my opponent is a much more august character.”
Overwhelmed by the startling news the Ambassador could do nothing for a few moments but gaze in a sort of speechless terror at his nephew. Finding his voice at last he said: “This is a devilishly awkward affair. Let me know how it all happened?”
Wilfrid related the whole story from his first meeting with Baranoff in Berlin down to that night’s scene at the masquerade, adding:—
“How was I to know it was the Czar? He talked exactly like an ordinary mortal. You told me yesterday that it was Ouvaroff’s intention to pick a quarrel with me, and as the stranger had a voice very like Ouvaroff’s I naturally concluded——”
“Alexander and Ouvaroff are half-brothers, as you know. Their voices are very similar. Now, what’s to be done in this matter?” continued the Ambassador with a thoughtful regard for his nephew’s safety.