“Go to Gehenna!” he yelled.
“You won’t? What will the family think when they hear that you have refused to stand by me in an affair of honour. Who’s to conduct my funeral if I fall?”
“I’d be most infernally happy to conduct your funeral at this present moment. Cease this foolery, and talk sense—if you can. Should this freak end in the wounding or it may be, the killing of the Czar—which heaven forbid!—to whom do you intend to look for safety?”
“To you, of course.”
“To me?”
“Most certainly. Doesn’t the nation pay you £10,000 a year to look after British subjects in Russia, of whom I am one?”
“I to protect you?”
“If you don’t the British public will want to know the reason! Remember that the duel is not of my seeking; he challenged me, not I him. In an autocratic realm what can a man do when its ruler insists on fighting him? It’s useless to go against the will of a fellow who can send you to Siberia for disobedience. And if he fall, whose is the blame?” “Well, I must be off,” continued Wilfrid, glancing at his watch; “but before going I should like—of course, with your permission—to see young Mulgrave,” naming his uncle’s chief secretary. “He is a man of spirit, and will stand by me in this affair.”
“Do you think——?” began the Ambassador angrily, and then broke off as if hit by some sudden thought. “Well, I’ll send for him, and you’ll hear what he thinks. Perhaps you’ll listen to him, if not to me.”
He pencilled a few words upon a card and touched a hand-bell, whose chime immediately brought in a servitor in livery. Handing him the card, and pointing to the name upon it, the Ambassador said with a meaning look,