“You are quite mistaken,” Mercer responded with unshaken calm. “He is not.”
“Where is he, then?”
“I do not know, Colonel Winter. What I should recommend is for you to go back to the Palace, and if you do not find him there—why, come and shoot us up again!” His eye strayed for a second to the blackened, reeking mass on the great stone hearth.
“Have you sent him home? Is that what you mean to imply?”
“I imply nothing, Colonel; I don’t dare to with such strenuous fighters as you gentlemen; only go and see, and if you do find the young gentleman has had no ill treatment, no scare—only a little adventure such as boys like, I hope you will come out here, or wherever I may be, and have that cigar you are refusing.”
The colonel was frankly puzzled. He couldn’t quite focus his wits on this bravado which had nothing of the bravo about it, in fact had a tinge of wistfulness in its quiet. One would have said the man regretted his compulsory attitude of antagonism; that he wanted peace.
Mercer smiled faintly. “You ought to know by this time when a man is lying, Colonel,” he continued, “but I will go further. I may have done plenty of wrong things in my life, some things, maybe, which the law might call a crime; but I have never done anything which would debar me from passing my word of honor as a gentleman; nor any one else from taking it. I give you my word of honor that I have meant and I do mean no slightest harm to Archie Winter; and that, while I do not know where he is at this speaking, I believe you will find him safe under your aunt’s protection when you get back to the Palace.”
“Call up the Palace Hotel, Mr. Birdsall,” was the colonel’s reply. “Mr. Mercer, I do not distrust that you are speaking exactly, but you know your Shakespeare; and there are promises which keep their word to the ear but break it to the sense.”
“I don’t wonder at your mistake; but you are mistaken, suh.”
Birdsall was phlegmatically ringing up Mrs. Winter, having the usual experience of the rash person who intrudes his paltry needs on the complex workings of a great hotel system.