There was just a second in which the athletic baronet stood, as it were breathless and incredulous, and then his Herculean fist whirled in the air with a most unseemly oath: the girl screamed, and a crash of glass and crockery, whisked away by their coats, resounded on the ground.
A chair between Lake and Sir Harry impeded the baronet's stride, and his uplifted arm was caught by a gentleman in moustache, who held so fast that there was no chance of shaking it loose.
'D— it, Bracton; d— you, what the devil—don't be a—fool' and other soothing expressions escaped this peacemaker, as he clung fast to the young baronet's arm.
'The people—hang it!—you'll have all the people about you.
Quiet—quiet—can't you, I say. Settle it quietly. Here I am.'
'Well, let me go; that will do,' said he, glowering furiously at Lake, who confronted him, in the same attitude, a couple of yards away. 'You'll hear,' and he turned away.
'I am at the "Brandon Arms" till to-morrow,' said Lake, with white lips, very quietly, to the gentleman in moustaches, who bowed slightly, and walked out of the room with Sir Harry.
Lake poured out some sherry in a tumbler, and drank it off. He was a little bit stunned, I think, in his new situation.
Except for the waiters, and the actors in it, it so happened that the supper-room was empty during this sudden fracas. Lake stared at the frightened girl, in his fierce abstraction. Then, with his wild gaze, he followed the line of his adversary's retreat, and shook his ears slightly, like a man at whose hair a wasp has buzzed.
'Thank you,' said he to the maid, suddenly recollecting himself, with a sort of smile; 'that will do. What confounded nonsense! He'll be quite cool again in five minutes. Never mind.'
And Lake pulled on his white glove, glancing down the file of silent waiters-some looking frightened, and some reserved—in white ties and waistcoats, and he glided out of the room—his mind somewhere else—like a somnambulist.