"A man who can resign an ambassadorship to pink his man is never in want of a second, specially in his own country. He would have fought us—be sure of that—and so far as I am concerned, the pleasure is only postponed. As for you, your Highness had better get to Windsor or Carlton House, as soon as may be."
"I cannot go to Carlton House," the Duke answered sadly, "though I dare say George would be glad enough to see me. We always had a great deal in common, but all that is of no use. The Fitz does not like me and she is ruling the roost there again."
"Well," said Wargrove, quaintly, "I shall be jotting down the provisions of my last will and testament as we are jogging along southward."
"I wonder," said his Royal Highness, pensively, "what has become of the little baggage. She would have been entrancing if we only could have got her safely trapped."
"Well," said my Lord, "you would not listen before, but I tell you now that if you had trapped her, as you say, you would certainly have died in bed with a dagger in your throat. That was what she meant by 'Oh, if I only had it!' You heard her say that. I remember my cousin Southwald getting hold of an Italian girl—a little minx from Apulia, fine as silk but dusky as a Brazil nut. She fought wild and bitter like a trapped wild cat. It was at Lecce in Murat's time, but Southwald was conceited that he could gentle her. He did not care for what he called the 'full-uddered kine.' He liked them parched and lithe with eyes like smouldering fires—"
"Ah, like Patsy!" said the Duke, not yet cured of his love-sickness.
"Exactly," countered my Lord, "like Miss Patsy to a hair. Well, when we went into his tent the next morning—Murat had excused him service—he—well, he was not pretty to see. To begin with, his throat was cut and the girl nowhere to be seen. Yet I could be sworn I tied her wrists tightly enough. One look at Southwald spoilt more breakfasts than mine that day, and Murat himself, who did not stick at trifles, brought all his available officers, a whole camp of them, and made poor Southwald the text for a little discourse. No, Murat did not say anything, he only pointed, but my cousin made a better homily and application than parson ever preached."
"And pray what were either of you doing in Apulia with the brother-in-law of Buonaparte?" cried the Duke, who compounded for the sin of private cowardice by excessive public patriotism.
"You were at Vienna at the time, and ought to remember," said my Lord, quite calmly. "Murat was keen to emancipate himself from the yoke of the Emperor, and was playing for his own hand. Southwald and I had been sent informally from Malta to Naples to discover what lengths he was prepared to go."
"Nonsense, Wargrove, I know better," the Duke exclaimed. "That was not your real reason."