"Well, now," quoth Crawford, turning to me, "will you, Mr Brail, to save further bother, make this apology to Mr Listado?"
"No," said I, deliberately, and with a strong emphasis.
"That's right, Benjie," quoth Listado, fidgetting with delight, as if the certainty of the quarrel was now put beyond all doubt. "Didn't I tell you that he would make no apology? Now, mind you, don't interfere with the breakfast hour to-morrow, Crawford, as I am invited to come here."
Hudson could stand it no longer.—"I'll tell you what, my dear Listado, I have my sister's, Miss Helen Hudson's, commands, that nothing more be done in this matter; and farther, that so far from Mr Brail having affronted her, he really paid her the most profound compliment that a gentleman can pay to a lady."
"As how, so please you?" quoth Listado, with a most vinegar grin, although deucedly puzzled at the same time; "a lady don't weep at a compliment usually."
"In plain English, then, Laurence, Mr Brail had just, as you entered, asked my sister to—to marry him."
Listado's face altered—his jaw fell—"Marry him! I thought so; why, this is worse and worse. Now, I will pink him, by Jupiter! Marry him, indeed! While Laurence Listado lives she shall be compelled to do no such thing. I am a man of some fortune, and, as you all know, I am desperately in love with her myself; so fix time and place, and damn the hour of breakfast now entirely. I will shoot him—any time—now—across that table. Oh Brail! you incomparable hyp"——
"Hush! hush!" said Hudson, clapping his hand on Listado's mouth; "hush! he has not only had the insolence to ask her to marry him—[here Listado clenched his hand, bit his lip, and gave three or four tremendous strides to the other end of the room]—not only has he asked her to marry him, but—but he has been accepted!"
Poor Laurence faced right round. "Say so again, and——Poo, Hudson, you are jesting with me; but here comes Mrs Hudson. Madam, has Mr Brail had the audacity to ask your daughter in marriage? And has she had the egregious folly to accept him in preference to your servant, and her humble admirer, Laurence Listado?"
Mrs Hudson looked at me, and then at her son, and then at me again—as much as to say—"very indelicate conduct this, on your part, at any rate"—at length, "Mr Brail, I am thunderstruck—how came my daughter to have been made the subject of a brawl?—was this"——