"I really must appeal to Miss Cinnamond," said Charteris, with barely veiled hostility. "You promised me this dance, didn't you?"
"I was under the impression that Miss Cinnamond had promised it to me," said Gerrard, more sternly than he realised.
"Oh, please," stammered Honour, not at all in the dignified way in which the beautiful and stately ladies of her favourite German stories were wont to intervene between knights contending for their favours—"I am afraid I have behaved very badly again. I—I wanted to speak to you both, and—and I did not know how to do it except by giving you the same dance."
"We are only too much honoured," said Gerrard, with overwhelming courtesy. He was inwardly furious, but the girl looked ready to cry, and a burst of tears in public was above all things to be avoided in the circumstances. "You find the tent too crowded? Let us look for a quieter place, then. If you could get hold of a shawl or something, Bob?"
Charteris obeyed, with exemplary outward meekness, and joined them immediately in a smaller tent arranged as a card-room, but not yet put to its intended use. Disregarding Gerrard's movement, he put the shawl round Honour himself, and they stood waiting her pleasure in silence, while she gripped her fan so hard in both hands that it broke in two. She raised a crimson face at last.
"I wanted to speak to you together," she began again. "You both think I have treated you badly, but indeed I did not mean it. But that was not what I wished to say. I hear—some one—a friend—tells me that you are angry with one another on my account. It makes me so unhappy, and I don't see why——"
Her voice failed, and Charteris and Gerrard remained awkwardly silent, each intensely conscious of the extreme superfluity of the other's presence. Alone, either might have made shift to say something, but with his rival there, whatever was said would only make things worse. Looking up despairingly, Honour saw in their faces what made her cry out in terror.
"Oh, you wouldn't! you wouldn't! Don't make me feel that I have done such a dreadful thing! If you fought a duel about me I should die. There is no need. I will promise never to marry any one—ever. I will do it willingly, gladly. Isn't that enough? What more can I do? Only tell me, and don't do such a wicked, unchristian thing."
"For pity's sake, Hal—you have the gift of the gab," growled Charteris in Gerrard's ear, as she turned agonized eyes upon them.
"Play up to me, then," muttered Gerrard in response, and spoke aloud and cheerfully. "My dear Miss Cinnamond, pray don't distress yourself. My friend Charteris and I have no intention whatever of fighting a duel. There has been a—a temporary misunderstanding between us, but it is absolutely cleared up, I assure you."