“For God’s sake, man, speak up!” snapped the young gentleman who had spoken only twice before.
“I saw him go!” whispered the man Talbot. “Saw ’im, I did, with these eyes! One second he was on that chair, and the next—gorn, phut! Begging your pardon, my lady——”
And then, said Dwight-Rankin, came perhaps the worst blow of all. It was only then that Shelmerdene grew really, sharply, terrified. For on the immovability, the valiancy, of my lord Viscount de Travest all who were privileged to know him were wont to rely, as on a very column of courage. Whereas now, what could they think? For, as the man Talbot made an end to his craven whispering, Guy de Travest was seen to be rising in his chair, his eyes as though frozen to some point of the room, his forehead, glistening with those clean drops of sweat that add to the charm of officers of the Household Cavalry and distinguish them from those genteel persons who “perspire.” However....
“The deuce!” whispered de Travest. “Oh, the deuce! Look!”
“Oh!” screamed the Lady Amelia Peep, and, screaming, fainted.
He didn’t, said Dwight-Rankin, know much about furniture: but along the wall towards the doors was a long sort of antique whatdoyoucallem—anyhow, there was an antique arrangement there, and on it, at intervals of a foot or so apart, stood a noble line of a dozen candles in tall candlesticks.
“Guy!” cried Fay Paradise. “Guy, what is it?”
De Travest, now standing high above the company, was staring at the line of twelve candles on the whatdoyoucallem. He murmured: “I don’t know.”
“Percy,” shrilled Lady Surplice, “what do you think?”
“There’s some trickery here!” sternly said the Lord Chancellor, who had followed the direction of de Travest’s eyes. “Tell Talbot to keep that door closed.”