He swung round, and glared into the shaven, aquiline face and wonder-laden eyes of Colonel Holles, who had come up behind the chair whilst the Duke was in conversation with its occupant, and had gradually crept nearer as if drawn by some irresistible attraction.
Amazed, the Duke looked him over from head to toe. Conceiving in this shabby stranger another witness of his humiliation, his anger, seeking a vent, flamed out.
“What’s this?” he rasped. “Do you presume to touch me, sirrah?”
The Colonel, never flinching as another might have done under a tone that was harsh and arrogant as a blow, before eyes that blazed upon him out of that white face, made answer simply:
“I touched you once before, I think, and you suffered it with a better grace. For then it was to serve you that I touched you.”
“Ha! And it will be to remind me of it that you touch me now,” came our fine gentleman’s quick, contemptuous answer.
Stricken by the brutality of the words, Holles crimsoned slowly under his tan, what time his steady glance returned the Duke’s contempt with interest. Then, without answering, he swung on his heel to depart.
But there was in this something so odd and so deliberately offensive to one accustomed to be treated ever with the deepest courtesy that it was now the Duke who caught him by the arm in a grip of sudden anger, arresting his departure.
“Sir! A moment!”
They were face to face again, and now the arrogance was entirely on the side of Holles. The Duke’s countenance reflected astonishment and some resentment.