The duke intimated politely to his fuming opponent his entire agreement with the remark. "I am sorry," he went on suavely, "if I have spoken in a language which has not appealed to your grace. Perhaps I may yet be so fortunate as to be able to make myself better understood."
As he spoke he took a candle from the table, and, flicking off the shade, set it on the side-board. Then he pivoted round and stepped ten paces across the room, turned, whipped out his revolver, took instant aim and fired. The candle stood as before, but extinguished. The duke advanced and bowed with something, it must be confessed, of the air of a music-hall performer. "That," he said quietly, "is how I reply to your grace's remarks. I trust I have the good fortune to make myself understood. No?"
Quite gratuitously imagining a negative on Mr. Leo's part, which that redoubtable fighter was far from expressing, the duke made a swift movement and tore down a rapier which hung as an ornament on the wall. After making a few passes, which seemed to have Mr. Leo's person for their ultimate destination, he spitted the shade of another candle, flung it aside, and drawing back, put himself in fencing attitude, and lunging furiously, after a grand flourish, just hit the wick and extinguished it likewise. Then he favoured his impressed audience with a deprecating gesture intimating that his exhibition of skill was a matter of small account, after which, without waiting for comments or applause, he turned with startling ferocity upon Mr. Leo and in an unpleasantly resonant tone commanded him to take down the fellow weapon and defend himself.
Mr. Leo showed no sign of falling in with his desire, but made a ghastly attempt to laugh the order to scorn and then to treat it with the contempt due to such an out-of-date proposal. But as it is difficult to preserve an attitude of dignified opposition in the neighbourhood of an aggressive and business-like hornet, so the Antipodean giant found it impossible to treat the duke with the passive scorn which prudence dictated. For the little Castilian had now arrived at a stage when he considered he might fairly let himself go, and let himself go he did.
He simply danced like a blood-thirsty Rumpelstilzchen before the anxious man of muscle, making his sword cut the air as though it were a riding whip, and describing inconvenient circles and passes with it in close proximity to the more cherished portions of his unwilling opponent's anatomy.
Mr. Leo looked very unhappy, and in the deplorable condition of a man who is consumed by the knowledge that he ought to be very angry and retaliative, and yet dares not. As he continued to hang back with a suggestion in his stupid face of how much he would give to be safe at The Pigeons, the duke's aggressiveness increased to the extent of prodding the massive frame before him with playful sword thrusts. This was more even than the abject Mr. Leo could stand.
For an instant he looked dangerous; then with a roar, of rage or pain according to the fancy of the audience, he made a snatch at a decanter with the object of hurling it at his tormentor. But before he could raise it for the fling the little rapier came down with a smart flash upon his wrist and the decanter fell shattered to the floor.
"That your grace's idea of fighting a Grandee of Spain, you abominable great hulks?" cried the duke viciously. "You want a lesson, milord, you foolish breaker of tongs. When shall you begin to snap my legs and arms and to screw my neck, you quaint elephant? You shall go down on your knees and apologize to me or I will run you through your absurd body and let the saw-dust run out. Shall I not, eh? eh? eh?" He accompanied each note of interrogation by a stinging slash of the flexible steel, and Mr. Leo began to look very weary and unwell.
But Lord Quorn's face was beaming as though a load had been taken off his mind.
For an instant Mr. Leo seemed to be gathering himself together for a bull-like rush, then the intention died away in helplessness. "It's all a mistake, I tell you," he blurted out in a quavering roar. "The pine was not intended for you."