"I have the honour," said the stranger, inclining his head and shutting his eyes, "to request—I do not say, demand—the grace of a few words with my Lord Quorn and his honourable friend."
"Have a glass of wine?" Gage proposed.
The stranger made a stately gesture of refusal. "We have a proverb in my country, Spain," he said, "'The thistle before the fig.' You are too kind. But with your permission I will defer the acceptance of your gracious hospitality for the present."
"Not a cigar?" Peckover suggested, pushing along the box.
Again the pantomime of refusal. "At considerable pain to myself, I must decline—at least till I have done my poor best to make myself understood," the man replied, with his eyes shut. "Nevertheless, you will not impose upon me the heavier penalty of seeing you forego the enjoyment of your own cigars?"
They bowed, none the less appreciatively that neither man had entertained the slightest intention of doing so. But they were strangely subdued. Somehow, ridiculous as they assured themselves it was, the stranger's personality chained and fascinated them. He was a little man with an absurd nose, but—— They found themselves staring at him, drinking in every detail, every flourish, as he drew forward a chair with a gesture of asking permission, then sat down and faced them with a quiet mastery of the situation which was horribly disconcerting. So they waited in a silence, half apprehensive, half quizzical, for him to begin, not without a shrewd idea of the purport of the approaching communication.
At length with a preliminary flourish of a ringed hand, and an effective raising and dropping of the fierce eyes, he began.
"You will have already graciously noted by the acceptance of my poor card that it is the Duke of Salolja, Hereditary Grand Sword Bearer to his Most Gracious Majesty the King of Spain, Lord Keeper of the Royal Vaults, Duke also of Oswalta, Marques of Risposta, with many other titles and offices, and a Grandee of Spain,"—at the recital of each succeeding dignity he raised his voice till at the culminating title the reverberation made the glass rattle—"who has the honour to address your grace."
Both men bowed, and at the same time did their best not to feel much smaller than the diminutive duke who held them as an undersized rattlesnake might fascinate a couple of finches.
"I must begin," said the duke, with what looked like the dangerous calm of a quiescent volcano, "by craving your grace's most amiable patience while I touch, very briefly, on a few points which stand out in my family history, the chronicles of the noble House of Salolja, of which I have the honour to be the present unworthy representative."