. The young lord and I did not "pull well together," but nothing
decidedly unpleasant occurred until someone proposed to drink to the
downfall of Gladstone. The beautiful lord got on his legs and began a
speech. Politically it was sound enough, but much of it was plainly
intended to turn me into ridicule. I answered sharply, working gradually up
crescendo, until at last, to bring matters to a head, I said,

"I don't agree with you; the Land Act of '81 was a necessity."

"Anyone who thinks so must be a fool."

"Very possibly, but I don't allow people to address such language to me,
and you must be aware that to call anyone a fool, sitting with you at table
in the house of a friend, is the act of a cad."

There was a lull, then a moment after he said,

"I only meant politically."

"And I only meant socially."

He advanced a step or two and struck me across the face with his finger
tips; I took up a champagne bottle, and struck him across the head and
shoulders. Different parties of revellers kept us apart, and we walked up
and down on either side of the table swearing at each other. Although I was
very wrath, I had had a certain consciousness from the first that if I
played my cards well I might come very well out of the quarrel; and as I
walked down the street I determined to make every effort to force on a
meeting. If the quarrel had been with one of the music hall singers I
should have backed out of it, but I had everything to gain by pressing it.
I grasped the situation at once. All the Liberal press would be on my side,
the Conservative press would have nothing to say against me, no woman in it
and a duel with a lord in it would be carrion for the society papers. But
the danger? To the fear of death I do not think I was ever susceptible. I
should have been afraid of a row with a music hall singer, because I should
have had much to lose by rowing with him, but as matters stood I had too
much to gain to consider the possibilities of danger. Besides there was no
need to consider. I knew very well there was no reality in it. I had broken
sixteen plates consecutively at the order to fire dozens of times; and yet
it was three to one against my shooting a man at twenty paces; so it was
ten thousand to one against a man, who had probably only fired off a
revolver half-a-dozen times in a back yard, hitting me. In the gallery you
are firing at white on black, on the ground you are firing at black upon a
neutral tint, a v