Miss Armytage admitted it, and thus they made conversation for a while, what time the great soldier sipped his wine and water to wash the dust of his morning ride from his throat. When at last he set down an empty glass Sir Terence took this as the intimation of his readiness to deal with official matters, and, rising, he announced himself entirely at his lordship’s service.
Lord Wellington claimed his attention for a full hour with the details of several matters that are not immediately concerned with this narrative. Having done, he rose at last from Sir Terence’s desk, at which he had been sitting, and took up his riding-crop and cocked hat from the chair where he had placed them.
“And now,” he said, “I think I will ride into Lisbon and endeavour to come to an understanding with Count Redondo and Don Miguel Forjas.”
Sir Terence advanced to open the door. But Wellington checked him with a sudden sharp inquiry.
“You published my order against duelling, did you not?”
“Immediately upon receiving it, sir.”
“Ha! It doesn’t seem to have taken long for the order to be infringed, then.” His manner was severe, his eyes stern. Sir Terence was conscious of a quickening of his pulses. Nevertheless his answer was calmly regretful:
“I am afraid not.”
The great man nodded. “Disgraceful! I heard of it from Fletcher this morning. Captain What’s-his-name had just reported himself under arrest, I understand, and Fletcher had received a note from you giving the grounds for this. The deplorable part of these things is that they always happen in the most troublesome manner conceivable. In Berkeley’s case the victim was a nephew of the Patriarch’s. Samoval, now, was a person of even greater consequence, a close friend of several members of the Council. His death will be deeply resented, and may set up fresh difficulties. It is monstrous vexatious.” And abruptly he asked “What did they quarrel about?”
O’Moy trembled, and his glance avoided the other’s gimlet eye. “The only quarrel that I am aware of between them,” he said, “was concerned with this very enactment of your lordship’s. Samoval proclaimed it infamous, and Tremayne resented the term. Hot words passed between them, but the altercation was allowed to go no further at the time by myself and others who were present.”