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  “Offered her a carte blanche and she had the impertinence to broadcast it as an offer of marriage. Fortunately for me, she declined.”

  “That’s what I thought you meant,” Dammler said, smiling with satisfaction, just before he drew back his arm and landed Seville a blow on the nose. Caught unaware, Seville reeled against the wall, while the blood spouted like a small fountain.

  The two were in a quiet corner, but the racket made by a full grown man hitting the wall with considerable force alerted those nearby to the interesting scene. A little throng of people gathered around them. “Well?” Dammler asked. “I expect that as you call yourself a gentleman, you will demand satisfaction. I am eager enough to kill you that I will accept your challenge, without prejudice, as the legal gentlemen say. Meaning, as I know you are not swift to understand, I do not consider you an equal.”

  “By Jove!” Seville said, pulling a handkerchief out to staunch the flow. “Not a dueling matter. She is nothing to either of us.”

  “I say you are a coward, sir. Is that nothing to you?” There were enough gentlemen of the first stare present that Seville must face up to the inevitable and accept a challenge. “My second, Lord Alvanley, if you will be so kind?” He looked to one of the crowd, a fellow-member of the Four Horse Club.

  “Mr. Elmtree,” Dammler named his second, not knowing until the words were out that he had chosen as poorly as a man well could. Still, it was better to keep it in the family.

  Seville tipped his head back, still with the handkerchief to it, and walked away, with Alvanley at his heels to inquire of him what the devil had happened.

  Dammler sought out Lord Petersham to make apologies for the fracas, and escaped with the minimum of fuss. He spoke to Hettie before leaving, asking her to take Prudence home, as he had to see Elmtree.

  “Allan, they are saying something of a duel! It can’t be true. Have you challenged someone?”

  “Seville, but don’t tell Prudence.”

  “Is she the cause?”

  “Certainly not! I called him a coward.”

  “Why on earth did you do such a thing--and at a ball?”

  “Because he is one, and this is where he happened to be.”

  “But that is no... You can’t have just called him a coward out of the blue!”

  “No, I saw red--but don’t for God’s sake tell Prue.”

  “It is about her! It has something to do with Finefields, hasn’t it? You forbid her to go.”

  “How should I forbid her? Listen, Het, you’d better take her home before she hears something. There’s bound to be a little talk.”

  “A little? My dear fool, there will be nothing else spoken of for a month. How exciting! Come to me as soon as you’re finished with Clarence. I don’t care what hour it is.”

  It was late. Elmtree was so delighted with the matter that he went to Berkeley Square with Dammler and stayed for two hours.

  “A duel you say? That is very serious, Lord Dammler.” He was torn between Nevvie and Lord Dammler, but for such an important occasion he deemed the full title suitable.

  “Yes, I consider it serious in the extreme that the man made your niece an improper offer--asked her to be his mistress. I’m sure you agree with me that an insult of that nature could not go unchallenged.”

  “I do agree! I would have run him through myself if I had had the least notion what he was up to. Sending her a diamond necklace--we ought to have known then he was up to no good. Imagine him taking Prue for such a dasher,” he added, half pleased with the thought. He was coming to see a mistress was not an outcast in this high society, but had not yet tumbled to it that the mistresses were from the ranks of married ladies, or if single, they made no claims to respectability.

  “It is of the greatest importance that he be made to pay for it. It is the only way her reputation may be saved. You may imagine what would be thought if he were to spread this tale around town with impunity.”

  “She’d be a byword. But you will not like to involve yourself in such a scrape--a lord. Of course you are to marry her--that makes it eligible for you to fight on her behalf.”

  “Marry her? Did she not tell you we are broken oft? There is to be no marriage.”

  “No marriage?” Clarence asked. A crafty look came into his snuff-brown eyes. He had come to see a duel was a thing to be prized. Lords and nabobs--all the go. How Sir Alfred and Mrs. Hering would stare to hear Dammler had called Seville out.

  “No, but that is not to say I wish to hear her spoken of with disrespect.”

  “Certainly not. We can’t allow that. Still, it seems to me, Lord Dammler, that as her uncle and guardian, I am the one ought to be looking out for her--fighting Seville.”

  “So you would have done, I’m sure,” he lied blandly, “had Seville spoken so to you.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s all well and good, but he spoke of my niece. I am still her closest male relative. The wedding is off--said so yourself. She is nothing to you now. It is for me to defend her fair name.”

  “You will be deeply involved, Clarence. My second. It will be your duty to meet with Lord Alvanley and arrange the time and place. He will call on you tomorrow, probably early in the morning.”

  A call from an out-and-outer like Alvanley was not underestimated. All the go, Alvanley--one heard his witticisms quoted everywhere, still Elmtree did not desire to be second to anyone in defending his niece’s name. No actual thought of standing facing an opponent with a gun in his hand at dawn came to mar his visions. It was more the notion of getting rigged out in a black coat and dashing mysteriously through town buying up pistols, having a practice session at Manton’s Shooting Gallery, mentioning casually to any noble bystander the purpose of being there that motivated him. “I was obliged to call Seville out--the chap they call The Nabob, you know,” had a finer ring to it than “I was Lord Dammler’s second.” If Dammler wasn’t even her fiancé this week, it would sound less fine still. Even there would be an air of cowardice to it, having someone else do his dirty work.

  "I am her uncle, and I’m your elder too, my boy,” he told Dammler, being required to adopt quite a high tone, a new thing for him. He liked it immensely. “You must be ruled by me in this, I think. I will take care of Seville, but you are welcome to be my second.”

  This was a catastrophe never in his wildest nightmares foreseen by Dammler. Already he knew Prudence would be displeased with the raffishness of a duel fought in her honor. How could he ever face her if, by his mismanagement, it was her uncle that was to be the one firing the shot? What reliance was to be placed on Clarence’s doing it with any skill at all?

  “There are very strict rules in this matter, Mr. Elmtree,” he said, matching his tone to Clarence’s. “The etiquette of dueling states that the one to issue the challenge must fight the duel. I will fight, and you will be my second, if you agree. Lord Alvanley is Seville’s second,” he threw in, to show Elmtree that being a second was not below a lord, and therefore not so much below an amateur artist.

  “I’ll talk it over with Alvanley,” Elmtree countered, not quite giving up on his scheme, but disliking to argue about rules and etiquette without a perusal of the rule book.

  “He will confirm what I have said,” Dammler said at once, then was overcome by a doubt. What if Elmtree, as her closest relative, took precedence? It was too awful to think of. He would override him. He would not let Clarence do it.

  “We’ll be in touch then,” Clarence said, and finally, a bottle and many repetitions later, he left, to bound up into his high perch phaeton and go home.

  Chapter Nine

  Dammler had a dozen times warned Clarence to silence in front of Prudence, but when her uncle smiled on her in the strangest way over their soft boiled eggs, when he castigated Seville (formerly one of his special pets) as a varlet and a scoundrel and predicted he would soon get his comeuppance, her suspicions were alerted. When he then asked her if anyone else had insulted her after Dammler left, she feared the worst.r />
  She already knew there was trouble afoot. To be trundled off home early with Hettie, and to see people staring at her as she left had told her that much. She worried that Dammler had said something horrid about her; once she even got to wondering whether Clarence had ended up in a fight with him, but anything so farfetched as a duel had not crossed her mind. Strangely enough, she had not given a thought to Seville.

  “No, Uncle. Did Dammler insult me? What did he say? Why did you go off with him?”

  “We had things to arrange. You needn’t worry you are disgraced in the least. We don’t mean to let the commoner off with it.”

  “I must know, Uncle! What was said of me? Was there some argument?”

  “Argument? Certainly not. That is to say, we had a little argument over which of us is to be the second, but...”

  “Second what?” she asked, her worst fears far superseded by this telling word.

  “It is all rules and etiquette, Prue. I’ll look it up at the library and let you... No, I can’t do that, either. Well, well, never mind. You just run along and write another book, and never fear anyone else will call you a trollop.”

  “He called me that! Uncle, who did such a thing?” Not Dammler. That, at least, was beneath him. She began to have some inkling of the truth at last.

  “What can you expect of a foreigner? Don’t give it a thought. Dammler and I will call him to account.”

  Mr. Seville, as English as roast mutton, was a foreigner to Uncle Clarence due to his name that hinted of Spain. “You are having a duel with Seville,” she said in a dying voice.

  “Nonsense! Where did you get such an idea? If his second calls while I am out, ask him to step in and wait. Lord Alvanley is to come to me. You might show him my pictures while he waits. That will keep him amused. I want to have a look at that rule book. I think I am the one ought to be defending you.”

  “Did you call him out?” Oh, but she knew it wasn’t that. Dammler and his quick temper had done it. He had always been jealous of Seville. Clarence was to be his second, receiving a call from Seville’s second. And fool enough to walk out to the library with such a caller coming!

  Conversation with her uncle was never enlightening. She would have to go to Allan to find out what had happened. But first she must insure Clarence’s staying home to meet with the second. Her mind was reeling, but it was a good mind, and soon she recalled that a duel might be averted by the proffering and acceptance of an apology. She pleaded with him to accept an apology.

  “Widgeon! Seville can’t apologize. I know that much. It was Dammler who called him a coward.”

  “But it was Seville who called me a trollop.”

  “Worse!” Clarence told her, smiling fondly on her.

  “Oh!” She hardly dared ask what.

  “That is only a part of it, however. When Seville refused to fight, Dammler called him a coward, and that is what we are going to let on the duel is about, to save your face.”

  She recognized the hand of Dammler in this face-saving pretext, and realized, too, the inefficacy of it. The truth would soon be bruited about.

  “Just what did Seville call me?” she asked, steeling herself to hear the worst.

  “He is saying he never asked you to marry him at all, the liar, and he sending you all those diamonds.”

  “Allan said it couldn’t be marriage he meant when he sent them. I wonder if he was right.”

  “Did Seville ask you to marry him or not?”

  “I thought he did. I don’t know. In my stupidity, perhaps I misunderstood.”

  She dredged her memory in vain for an actual, outright, unmistakable offer of marriage, and while she recalled mention of a carriage and team of her own, an apartment or house, jewelry, the actual words “Will you marry me,” did not come back to her, for they had never been spoken.

  “Aye, well he’s calling it a carte blanche now, and if that’s the way it was, there will be no apologies. Dashed insult, asking a nice girl like you to be his mistress.”

  “He didn’t say anything like that.”

  “What he meant--told Dammler so.”

  She could see it all now. Seville, thinking them alienated, had told Dammler the truth. That was the truth then, he had never wanted her to marry him at all. In her naive stupidity she had misunderstood, had told Dammler and a few others. Had remained friends with Seville all these months! And Dammler had known it all along, or suspected. No wonder he had tried repeatedly to turn her against Seville. She was promised to attend Malvern’s house party in company with him, too. That must be cancelled. But first there were more urgent matters to attend to. She couldn’t think it right to go on urging apology after this insult, and knew Allan would not accept one, in any case. There would be a duel. It must not be Dammler, in no way associated with her now, who fought it.

  While they were still talking, Alvanley arrived, and she was told again to run along and write a book, while the men attended to matters. Alvanley was a little surprised to be offered wine and a viewing of a bunch of artworks when he had come to arrange a duel. He was a strict sportsman; had told Seville he must by no means accept an apology for the “coward,” or he would be laughed out of the Four Horses Club. This being the case, Seville was not inclined to apologize for his part in the name calling. In the end, there was no mention of any apologies, but only the fixing of the date and place, at seven the next morning, at Hampstead Heath, and the arrangement for a physician.

  “Knighton. I always have Knighton,” Clarence advised.

  Alvanley was hard put to suppress a chuckle. “Knighton does not take part in such affairs as this. Marlowe is our man. I have arranged it.”

  “Good. Excellent chap, Marlowe. Does he know what he is about?”

  “You may be sure he does, Mr. Elmtree. Now, I think that is all.”

  “Just one little detail. About the second--I think Dammler and I will switch.”

  “That is highly irregular, sir.”

  “Aye, so it is, but the thing is, they are really fighting over that damned foreigner insulting my niece, and as Dammler isn’t going to marry her, after all, I think it is my place to fight.”

  “They are fighting over Dammler’s calling Seville a coward.”

  “Devil a bit of it. That is only done to try to save the girl’s name.”

  “In that case, sir, the less said of it the better.”

  “Ho, what’s the point of that, with Seville shouting from the rooftops he offered her a mistress-ship?”

  “I hadn’t realized it was done in quite so public a way as that,” Alvanley proclaimed, shocked to find himself on the side of such a dastard.

  “To go announcing it at Lord Petersham’s ball is as good as putting it in the papers,” Clarence informed him.

  Alvanley began to suspect Seville had been withholding details from him, and was rather inclined to side with the uncle. “Dammler is not marrying her, you say?”

  “No, he has sheered off on her.”

  “His challenging Seville indicates..."

  “He never could stand the fellow. No more could I--sending her diamonds.”

  “I wonder you didn’t call him out sooner!”

  “So do I. I would have done it, but he kept getting away on me. I would have done it long ago if I could have ever caught up with him.”

  Never in a long career of arranging such matters as this had Lord Alvanley found himself in just such a pickle. A lady publicly slandered, and being defended by a gentleman who had already called off the wedding. “It seems to me in this circumstance Dammler has behaved irregularly. You are the girl’s guardian. If he is not to marry her..."

  “He has no thought of it. None at all. Well, his behavior has always been a trifle irregular, if it comes to that. Writing verses... So you agree with me then that he should be the second--Dammler.”

  “Yes, but in that case it is Dammler I ought to be meeting with this morning.”

  “Run along and see him. Tell him we have decided he
is to be the second.”

  Alvanley began to think it a very good idea to have a word with young Dammler, and left to do so. They exchanged words for an hour, with Alvanley, the senior gentleman, an acknowledged master on all matters of sportsmanship, laying down the law quite severely. “It is for her guardian to defend her name. He wishes to do so, Dammler, and it will add an unnecessary air of intrigue to the affair for you, no longer involved with the girl, to call him out.”

  “Damme I’ve already called him out, and he’s accepted.”

  “You shouldn’t have. There is really no excuse your being mixed up in this at all. I have a mind to tell Elmtree to choose a different second.”

  A vision of Sir Alfred arose in Dammler’s mind. Those two babies at the mercy of Seville and Alvanley filled him with horror. “In that case, I’ll become her fiancé again. Will that do, sir?”

  “Oh certainly, but can it be done?”

  “It can, if necessary.”

  “Highly irregular. How am I to arrange a duel when the principals keep changing place? We’ll have to postpone it a day. Make it the day after tomorrow--same time and place. I’ll have to see Marlowe again. What a nuisance it is. It is what comes of letting parvenus into the Four Horses Club.”

  “All right. Day after tomorrow. Seven o’clock, you said?”

  “Yes, and mind you don’t kill your man, Dammler. Damned ramshackle business. A hit in the shoulder will satisfy the lady’s honor.”

  Dammler, as quick to settle down as to wrath, was already half wishing he had been satisfied with drawing Seville’s cork, but was not about to admit it. When his caller left, he put on a clean shirt and went around to Grosvenor Square, just as Prudence was setting out for Hettie, whose company she meant to ask for to go with her to Dammler.

  “I must speak to you,” she said.

  He knew then Clarence had told her about it. Foolish to hope he would not. “Come, we’ll talk in the carriage,” he said, handing her into his closed carriage, driven on this occasion to give him some privacy, as he had discovered he was once again a subject of curiosity to the gawkers.