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Peregrine advanced upon him, and said stormily: ‘Sir, I shall ask you to explain yourself !’
‘You forgot to tell him that I kissed you, Clorinda,’ murmured the gentleman.
‘What?’ shouted Peregrine.
‘For heaven’s sake be quiet!’ snapped his sister.
Peregrine ignored her. ‘You will meet me for this, sir! I hoped I might come upon you again, and I have. And now to find that you have dared to insult my sister. You shall hear from me!’
A look of amusement crossed the gentleman’s face. ‘Are you proposing to fight a duel with me?’ he inquired.
‘Where and when you like!’ said Peregrine.
The gentleman raised his brows. ‘My good boy, that is very heroic, but do you really think that I cross swords with every country nobody who chooses to be offended with me?’
‘Now, Julian, Julian, what are you about?’ demanded a voice from the doorway into the coffee-room. ‘Oh, I beg pardon, ma’am! I beg pardon!’ Lord Worcester came into the hall with a glass in his hand, and paused, irresolute.
Peregrine, beyond throwing him a fleeting glance, paid no heed to him. He was searching in his pocket for a card, and this he presently thrust at the gentleman in the greatcoat. ‘That is my card, sir!’
The gentleman took it between finger and thumb, and raised an eyeglass on the end of a gold stick attached to a ribbon round his neck. ‘Taverner,’ he said musingly. ‘Now where have I heard that name before?’
‘I do not expect to be known to you, sir,’ said Peregrine, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘Perhaps I am a nobody, but there is a gentleman who I think – I am sure – will be pleased to act for me: Mr Henry Fitzjohn, of Cork Street!’
‘Oh, Fitz!’ nodded Lord Worcester. ‘So you know him, do you?’
‘Taverner,’ repeated the gentleman in the greatcoat, taking not the smallest notice of Peregrine’s speech. ‘It has something of a familiar ring, I think.’
?
?Admiral Taverner,’ said Lord Worcester helpfully. ‘Meet him for ever at Fladong’s.’
‘And if that is not enough, sir, to convince you that I am not unworthy of your sword, I must refer you to Lord Worth, whose ward I am!’ announced Peregrine.
‘Eh?’ said Lord Worcester. ‘Did you say you were Worth’s ward?’
The gentleman in the greatcoat gave Peregrine back his card. ‘So you are my Lord Worth’s wards!’ he said. ‘Dear me! And – er – are you at all acquainted with your guardian?’
‘That, sir, has nothing to do with you! We are on our way to visit his lordship now.’
‘Well,’ said the gentleman softly, ‘you must present my com-pli ments to him when you see him. Don’t forget.’
‘This is not to the point!’ exclaimed Peregrine. ‘I have challenged you to fight, sir!’
‘I don’t think your guardian would advise you to press your challenge,’ replied the gentleman with a slight smile.
Judith laid a hand on her brother’s arm, and said coldly: ‘You have not told us yet by what name we may describe you to Lord Worth.’
His smile lingered. ‘I think you will find that his lordship will know who I am,’ he said, and took Lord Worcester’s arm, and strolled with him into the coffee-room.
Four
IT WAS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT MISS TAVERNER SUCCEEDED IN preventing her brother from following the stranger and Lord Worcester into the coffee-room and there attempting to force an issue. He was out of reason angry, but upon Judith’s representing to him how such a scene could only end in a public brawl which must involve her, as the cause of it, he allowed himself to be drawn away, still declaring that he would at least know the stranger’s name.
She pushed him up the stairs in front of her, and in the seclusion of her own room gave him an account of her adventure. It was not, after all, so very bad; there had been nothing to alarm her, though much to enrage. She made light of the circumstance of the stranger’s kissing her: he would bestow just such a careless embrace on a pretty chambermaid, she dared say. It was certain that he mistook her station in life.
Peregrine could not be content. She had been insulted, and it must be for him to bring the stranger to book. As she set about the task of arguing him out of his determination, Judith realised that she had rather bring the gentleman to book herself. To have Peregrine settle the business could bring her no satisfaction; it must be for her to punish the stranger’s insolence, and she fancied that she could do so without assistance.
When Peregrine went downstairs again to the coffee-room the strange gentleman had gone. The landlord, still harassed and busy with company, could not tell Peregrine his name, nor even recall having served Lord Worcester. So many gentlemen had crowded into his inn to-day that he could not be blamed for forgetting half of them. As for a team of blood-chestnuts, he could name half a dozen such teams; they might all have drawn up at the George for anything he knew. Peregrine could only be sorry that Mr Fitzjohn was already on his way back to London: he might have known the stranger’s name.
