He stuck his arms akimbo, and planted himself directly in front of me, frowning ominously. “Let us waste no more words,” he said. “If I have made a mistake, I shall be ready to offer you a full apology. If not—But that is nothing to the purpose. I am Lieutenant-General Graf von Rosenau, at your service, and I have reason to believe that my son, Graf Albrecht von Rosenau, a lieutenant in his Imperial and Royal Majesty’s 99th Croat Regiment, has made a runaway match with a certain Signorina Bianca Marinelli of Venice. Are you prepared to give me your word of honour as a gentleman and an Englishman that you are not privy to this affair?”
At these terrible words I felt my blood run cold. I may have lost my presence of mind; but I don’t know how I could have got out of the dilemma even if I had preserved it.
“Your son has not yet arrived,” I stammered.
He pounced upon me like a cat upon a mouse, and gripped both my arms above the elbow. “Is he married?” he hissed, with his red nose a couple of inches from mine.
“No,” I answered, “he is not. Perhaps I had better say at once that if you use personal violence I shall defend myself, in spite of your age.”
Upon this he was kind enough to relax his hold.
“And pray, sir,” he resumed, in a somewhat more temperate tone, after a short period of reflection, “what have you to do with all this?”
“I am not bound to answer your questions, Herr Graf,” I replied; “but, as things have turned out, I have no special objection to doing so. Out of pure good-nature to your son, who was detained by duty in Venice at the last moment, I consented to bring the Signorina Marinelli here yesterday, and to await his arrival, which I am now expecting.”
“So you ran away with the girl, instead of Albrecht, did you? Ho, ho, ho!”
I had seldom heard a more grating or disagreeable laugh.