ott,
some at the man he had so grossly affronted--whilst in the shadows of
the hall a couple of lacqueys looked on amazed, all teeth and eyes.

Mr. Wilding stood, very still and outwardly impassive, the wine trickling
from his long face, which, if pale, was no paler than its habit,
a vestige of the smile with which he had proposed the toast still
lingering on his thin lips, though departed from his eyes. An elegant
gentleman was Mr. Wilding, tall, and seeming even taller by virtue of
his exceeding slenderness. He had the courage to wear his own hair,
which was of a dark brown and very luxuriant; dark brown too were his
sombre eyes, low-lidded and set at a downward slant. From those odd eyes
of his, his countenance gathered an air of superciliousness tempered by
a gentle melancholy. For the rest, it was scored by lines that stamped
it with the appearance of an age in excess of his thirty years.

Thirty guineas' worth of Mechlin at his throat was drenched, empurpled
and ruined beyond redemption, and on the breast of his blue satin coat a
dark patch was spreading like a stain of blood.

Richard Westmacott, short, sturdy, and fair-complexioned to the point
of insipidity, watched him sullenly out of pale eyes, and waited. It
was Lord Gervase who broke at last the silence--broke it with an oath, a
thing unusual in one whose nature was almost woman-mild.

"As God's my life!" he spluttered wrathfully, glowering at Richard. "To
have this happen in my house! The young fool shall make apology!"

"With his dying breath," sneered Trenchard, and the old rake's words,
his tone, and the malevolent look he bent upon the boy increased the
company's malaise.

"I think," said Mr. Wilding, with a most singular and excessive
sweetness, "that what Mr. Westmacott has done he has done because he
apprehended me amiss."

"No doubt he'll say so," opined Trenchard with a shrug, and had caution
dug into his ribs by Blake's elbow, whilst Richard made haste to prove
him wrong by saying the contrary.

"I apprehended you exactly, sir," he answered, defiance in his voice and
wine-flushed face.

"Ha!" clucked Trenchard, irrepressible. "He's bent on self-destruction.
Let him have his way, in God's name."

But Wilding seemed intent upon showing how long-suffering he could
be. He gently shook his head. "Nay, now," said he. "You thought, Mr.
Westmacott, that in mentioning your sister, I did so lightly. Is it
not so?"

"You mentioned her, and tha