“I am not. I bear the less distinguished, but, I hope, equally respectable patronymic of Jenkinson.”
But my modest disclaimer passed unheeded, for now another combatant had thrown himself into the fray.
“Vile and dishonoured name! No one shall permit himself such language in my presence. I am Lieutenant-General Graf von Rosenau, sir, and you shall answer to me for your words.”
The Herr Graf’s knowledge of Italian was somewhat limited; but, such as it was, it had enabled him to catch the sense of the stigma cast upon his family, and now he was upon his feet, red and gobbling, like a turkey-cock, and prepared to do battle with a hundred irate Venetians if need were.
The marchese stared at him in blank amazement. “You!” he ejaculated—“you Von Rosenau! It is incredible—preposterous. Why, you are old enough to be her grandfather.”
“Not old enough to be in my dotage,—as I should be if I permitted my son to marry a beggarly Italian,—nor too old to punish impertinence as it deserves,” retorted the Graf.
“Your son? You are the father then? It is all the same to me. I will fight you both. But the marriage shall take place first.”
“It shall not.”
“It shall.”
“Insolent slave of an Italian, I will make you eat your words!”