The Master of the Ceremonies

“Queer? You looked queer multiplied ten thousand times. Why, Rockley, one of you with a face like that would scare a regiment of French cuirassiers. I say, what was the row about – a woman?”

“Curse her!” cried Rockley, flashing out into uncontrolled rage again, as he writhed with mental and bodily pain. “I’ll bring her to her senses for this. Treat me as if I were some gawky boy, to be held off and coaxed on, and then bidden to keep my distance!”

“What girl was it?”

“Curse you! don’t ask questions.”

“Bah! What a fire-eater you are, Rockley. As if I did not know. So the fairy Clairy has been saying, ‘How dare you, sir?’ Ha – ha – ha!”

“Do you want to quarrel, man?” said the Major, with an angry look in his eye.

“Not I, old lad; not with you in that temper. So she has been riding the high horse, and bidding you keep your distance; and, just in the nick of time, she had her dear friend Dick Linnell there, and the strong-armed fool horsewhipped you.”

Rockley turned upon him savagely, and gripped him by the arm so fiercely that Sir Harry Payne involuntarily shrank away.

“Don’t!” cried the Major hoarsely. “Don’t! or I can’t answer for myself.”

“Why, Rockley!”

“Don’t speak to me. Man, I feel as if that Linnell had roused a devil in me, and till I see him on the turf helpless I shall know no rest. Were you ever beaten – cut – and wealed with your own whip?”

“Well, egad, not to put too fine a point on it, old lad, it was not with a whip; it was a walking cane.”

“And did it cut deep down into your very soul, and make you feel as if nothing but blood would heal the pain?”

“Well, egad, no. It hurt a good deal, but I was obliged to pocket it all. Lady’s husband was a bit put out, you see. But that’s a long time ago. And do you really mean to fight?”

“Fight? If I don’t I shall lie in wait for the scoundrel and shoot him like a dog.”

“You couldn’t do that, my dear Rockley. Behaviour unworthy of an officer and a gentleman.”

“And as for that woman,” continued Rockley, striding up and down the room as if he were some savage beast confined in a cage, “my God! she shall smart for this!”

“My dear Rockley,” said Sir Harry, “you went the wrong way to work.”

“Silence, idiot!” roared the Major fiercely. “You would, of course, have won. She would have gone down on her knees to you. You are so handsome – so irresistible. Oh, damn it! No one could withstand you!”

“Sneer away, old fellow. I’m not going to boast,” said Sir Harry with a quiet, self-satisfied smile. “I’m not the man to kiss and tell; but – never mind.”

“Go on and settle that at once. No shirking; no excuses, mind. He shall meet me, and then – ”

“Then – poor devil!” murmured Sir Harry Payne, as he sauntered out of the room and away across the parade ground. “What a temper he has! By George! if he were little May’s husband I’m afraid I should be disposed to abdicate in favour of some one, who might flirt to his heart’s content for me.

“Now what’s to be done? Shall I tell the Colonel? No. Wouldn’t do. The matter must go on. He’ll be cooler when they meet, and it will only mean a wing or a leg. That’s all.”

He went jauntily down to the parade, and exchanged pinches of snuff with old Lord Carboro’, who looked after him and muttered, “Fashionable fool! I wonder how much he owes Barclay. I must see. Clode tells me things are going too far, and I’m not going to have some one’s fair fame smirched through that idiot. A few months in a debtor’s prison would do him good.”

In happy ignorance of the remarks made behind his back, Sir Harry Payne went on to the house on the Parade, and Lord Carboro’ trotted off, snuff-box in hand, slightly uneasy in mind, but at rest compared to what he would have been had he known of the encounter that had taken place, and of Sir Harry Payne’s mission.

Richard Linnell had not returned, so Sir Harry bethought himself of Colonel Mellersh, found him at home, began chatting with him concerning cards, and the company staying in the place, firmly resolved not to give the Colonel a hint about his mission – and in ten minutes he had told him all.

“Tut – tut – tut!” ejaculated the Colonel. “I’m very sorry. About Claire Denville, you say?”

“Egad, Mellersh, what a fellow you are! You pump a man dry. Well, yes. Rockley’s dead on her. You remember the serenade?”

“Ah, yes; that horrible night!”

“Well, he’s a close fellow, as a rule, about his amours, but he raves about that girl.”

“Had she gone to meet him?”

“I don’t know; suppose so. Then the other lover comes; and it’s tom-cats.”

“They came to blows!”

“Blows?” said Sir Harry, bending forward and taking the Colonel by a button: “as far as I can make out, Linnell took his riding-whip from him, and he is lashed from head to foot.”

“And all about that girl of Denville’s,” said the Colonel, with a contemptuous look.

“Yes. But, my dear boy, you must own that she is devilishly handsome.”

“Oh yes, she’s handsome enough. Then the affair is serious?”

“Serious?” said Sir Harry, lowering his voice. “Rockley swears he’ll kill him.”

Colonel Mellersh looked very grave.

“They’ll have to meet, then?”

“Meet, my dear sir! Rockley says he’ll lie in wait for him and shoot him like a dog if he doesn’t come out. Fancy, you know, beaten like that before a lady!”

“And such a lady as Claire Denville,” said Colonel Mellersh, with a sneer. “Well,” he added, changing his manner, “I’m very sorry.”

“Yes, so am I. Rockley’s deuced haughty, and bullying, and overbearing, particularly lately – things seem to have gone wrong with him – but he’s not a bad fellow.”

“As men go,” said the Colonel with a sneer.

“Exactly – as men go,” replied Sir Harry, whose brains were not very analytical as regarded double entendre.

Just then Richard Linnell reached the door, encountered Cora Dean, and was finally beckoned into Colonel Mellersh’s room.

“My dear Linnell,” said the Colonel gravely, as the others exchanged distant bows, “Sir Harry Payne has called on behalf of Major Rockley – as his friend.”

He watched Linnell’s face intently, but there was only a slight contraction of the brows.

“Bravo!” said the Colonel to himself. “He’s staunch.”

“Mellersh,” said Linnell gravely, “I have no friend to whom I can appeal but you in a case like this.”