it up, Count. Better not come toiling up here any
more. It's not good for your health. Why, man, ye're as white as a ghost
this minute."

He was indeed, having perceived at last the insult intended. To be
denied the house at such a time was to checkmate his designs, to set a
term upon his crafty and subtle espionage, precisely in the season when
he hoped to reap its harvest. But his chagrin sprang not at all from
that. His cold anger was purely personal. He was a gentleman--of the
fine flower, as he would have described himself--of the nobility of
Portugal; and that a probably upstart Irish soldier--himself, from
Samoval's point of view, a guest in that country--should deny him his
house, and choose such terms of ill-considered jocularity in which to do
it, was an affront beyond all endurance.

For a moment passion blinded him, and it was only by an effort that he
recovered and kept his self-control. But keep it he did. You may trust
your practised duellist for that when he comes face to face with the
necessity to demand satisfaction. And soon the mist of passion clearing
from his keen wits, he sought swiftly for a means to fasten the quarrel
upon Sir Terence in Sir Terence's own coin of galling mockery. Instantly
he found it. Indeed it was not very far to seek. O'Moy's jealousy, which
was almost a byword, as we know, had been apparent more than once to
Samoval. Remembering it now, it discovered to him at once Sir Terence's
most vulnerable spot, and cunningly Samoval proceeded to gall him there.

A smile spread gradually over his white face--a smile of immeasurable
malice.

"I am having a very interesting and instructive morning in this
atmosphere of Irish boorishness," said he. "First Captain Tremayne--"

"Now don't be after blaming old Ireland for Tremayne's shortcomings.
Tremayne's just a clumsy mannered Englishman."

"I am glad to know there is a distinction. Indeed I might have perceived
it for myself. In motives, of course, that distinction is great indeed,
and I hope that I am not slow to discover it, and in your case to excuse
it. I quite understand and even sympathise with your feelings, General."

"I am glad of that now," said Sir Terence, who had understood nothing of
all this.

"Naturally," the Count pursued on a smooth, level note of amiability,
"when a man, himself no longer young, commits the folly of taking a
young and charming wife, he is to be forgiven when a natural anxiety
drives him to len