SCENE XXII

O'Hare drew himself up. He had grown all at once exceedingly still.

Mr. Stafford, gradually recovering from his paroxysms, had begun to bestow some intelligent interest upon the scene. There was a mist of doubt in his eyes as he gazed from the victimised, but very lively, lady to her crestfallen "violent abductor," and thence to the gloomy countenance of the new-comer on the threshold. There seemed to be, it struck him, a prodigious deliberation in Mistress Kitty's cry and start of surprise.

"What is my pretty Bellairs up to now? Well, poor Irish Denis, with all his wits, is no match for her anyhow, and, faith, she knows it," thought he. Aloud he said, with great placidity: "Fie, fie, this is shocking to hear!" and sat, the good-humoured Chorus to the Comedy, on the edge of the table, waiting for the development of the next scene. Sir Jasper, wiping a beaded brow and still staring, as if by the sheer fixing of his bloodshot eye he could turn these disappointing puppets into the proper objects of his vengeance, was quite unable to follow any current but the muddy whirl of his own thoughts.

Lord Verney alone it was, therefore, who rose at all to Mistress Kitty's situation.

"Are you the scoundrel, then," said he, marching upon O'Hara, "who dared to lay hands upon an unprotected lady in the very streets of Bath?"

"Monstrous!" remarked Captain Spicer behind him. Then jogging his patron's elbow, "'Twas well spoke, Verney, man. At him again, there's blood in this."

Mr. O'Hara looked steadily at Lord Verney, glancing contemptuously at Captain Spicer, and then gazed with long, full searching at the beguiling widow.

She thought to scent danger to herself in the air; and, womanlike, she seized unscrupulously upon the sharpest weapon in her armoury.

"Perhaps," she said, with an angry, scornful laugh, "Mr. O'Hara will now deny that he and his servants attacked my chairmen in the dark, threw me, screaming with terror, into his carriage, and that his intention was avowedly to wed me by force in London to-morrow."

All eyes were fixed on the Irishman, and silence waited upon his reply. He had grown so pale that his red head seemed to flame by contrast. He made a low bow.

"No, Kitty," said he, in a very gentle voice, "I deny nothing." Then sweeping the company with a haughty glance. "This lady," said he, "has spoken truth; as for me, I am ready to meet the consequences of my conduct."

His eye finally rested once more on Lord Verney. The latter grew white and then scarlet; while Spicer whispered and again jogged.

"Of course," blustered the youth, and wished that he had the curious digestion of his contemporaries, that his stomach did not so squeamishly rebel at the prospect of a dose of steel, "of course, sir, you must be aware——"

"It shall be swords," interrupted the irrepressible Spicer; "and gad, sir, what my noble friend will have left of your body I will myself make mince of this night! Aye, sir," said the Captain, beginning to squint as was his wont under excitement, and slapping his bony chest; "I will fight you myself, sir."

"Fight you!" exclaimed O'Hara, suddenly stung into magnificent contempt. "Fight you, sir?" he ran a withering eye over the grasshopper anatomy of the toady as he spoke, "you, sir, you, the writer of that dirty note this morning, bidding me apologise—apologise!" cried Denis, with his most luscious brogue, "to the man, Sir Jasper there, for having insulted you on the subject of your miserable mealy head—fight you, sir? Sure, rather than fight you," said Mr. O'Hara, searching for the most emphatic asseveration conceivable, "I'd never fight again for the rest of my life! But I'll tell you what I'll do for you: next time you thrust that ugly face of yours within the reach of me arm Oi'll pull your nose till it's as long as your tongue, and as slender as your courage, damme!"

"Oh, gad! what a low scoundrel," murmured Captain Spicer, withdrawing quickly several paces, and with an intensified cast in his eye; "'tis positive unfit for a gentleman to speak to him!"

"Now, my lord?" said O'Hara, resuming his easy dignity.

But that her comedy should drift into tragedy was none of Mistress Kitty's intentions. Briskly stepping between the laboriously pugnacious Verney and the poor Irishman, whose eye (for all his present composure) shone with the lust of the fray, she thus addressed them collectively and in turn:

"Shame, shame, gentlemen, I protest! Is it not enough that a poor woman's heart should be set a-fluttering by over-much love, must it now go pit-a-pat again for over-much hate? My Lord Verney, think of your mother. Think of her, of whose declining years you are the sole prop and joy; recall to mind those principles of high morality, of noble Christian duty, which that paragon of women so sedulously inculcated in you!" Her voice quivered on the faintest note of mockery. "Oh, what would that worthy lady's feelings be, were you to be brought home to her—a corse! What, ah what indeed! would your feelings be if, by some accident," here she shot involuntarily what was almost the suspicion of a wink in the direction of O'Hara, "you had to answer for the life of a fellow-creature before to-morrow's dawn? Why, you could never open your Bible again without feeling in your bosom the throbbing heart of a Cain!" She stopped to draw breath.

Mr. Stafford, one delighted grin, slid the whole length of the table on which he sat with dangling legs, to get a fuller view of the saucy face: "Incomparable Bellairs," he murmured to himself with keen appreciation, And: "So, ho, my noble friend," thought he, as he shot a glance at the solemn Verney, "now do I know what has closed to you for ever the gates of Paradise."

"And you, Mr. O'Hara," resumed the lady, turning her eye, full of indefinable and entrancing subtleties upon the honest gentleman, "would you have me forgive you this night's work? Do not, then, do not force this impetuous young man to an unnecessary quarrel. Allow him to withdraw his challenge. Do that in atonement, sir," said she, with much severity of accent; but her eye said sweetly enough, "Do that for me" and gave further promise of unutterable reward.

"Madam," said O'Hara, glancing away as if the sight of her beauty were now more pain than pleasure to him, "'tis for my Lord Verney to speak; I am entirely at his orders. I understand," and here, for all his chivalrousness, he could not refrain him from a point of satire, "I understand, ma'am, that you have given him the right to espouse your quarrels."

"Most certainly," said the crimson Verney, who had been monstrously uneasy during his lady's sermon, not only because every word of it hit some tender point of his abnormally developed conscience, but also because of an indefinable sensation that he was being held up to ridicule, "most certainly, sir, it is as Mistress Bellairs's future husband that I find it incumbent—that I find myself forced, reluctantly—no, I mean——" here he floundered and looked round for Spicer, who, however, was ostentatiously turning his back upon the proceedings and gazing at the moon. "In fact," resumed the poor youth, falling back on his own unguided wits, "I have no alternative but to demand satisfaction for an attempt on the honour of the future Lady Verney."

"Mercy on us!" cried Mistress Kitty, with a shrill indignant little scream. "Oh fie, my lord, who would have deemed you so bloodthirsty? Before heaven," she cried piously, glancing at the raftered ceiling, "before heaven, it would be the death of me, were there to be quarrelling, strife, contention for me—for me! Who am I," she said with the most angelic humility, "that two such gallant gentlemen should stake their lives for me? Rather," said she, "will I give you back your word, my lord. Indeed," this with a noble air of sacrifice, "I feel Providence has but too clearly shown me my duty. Hush, hush, Verney, bethink yourself! How could I ever face your mother (were you indeed to survive the encounter) with the knowledge that I had exposed you to danger; that for me you had loaded your soul with blood-guiltiness!"

She shuddered and looked delicious.

"Child," said she meltingly, as Lord Verney faintly protested, "it must be so. I have felt it more than once; you are too young." There was a conviction in her voice that gave no hope of reprieve, and Lord Verney, who had already found out that Mistress Bellairs was too dangerous a delight to pursue with comfort, accepted his sentence with a Christian resignation that did justice to his mother's training.

"All, all must now be over between us," said Kitty pathetically, "save a gentle friendship! Your hand, my Lord."

She reached for his clumsy paw with her determined little fingers.

"Mr. O'Hara," said she, turning round. "I forgive you. Your hand also, sir."

If the clasp she extended to Verney was purely official, that with which she now seized O Hara's cold right hand was eloquent enough with quick and secret pressure. But, for the first time in his life, perhaps, O'Hara was slow in returning a woman's token.

"Shake hands," ordered Mistress Bellairs decisively, and joined the belligerents' palms.

Here Stafford sprang jovially to the assistance of the pretty peacemaker.

"Right, right," cried he. "Shake hands on it like good fellows. Fie! who could keep up a feud under those beaming eyes?—Never be downcast, Verney, lad! What did I tell thee, only yesterday, in the Pump Room, about thy halo?—Denis, my boy, I've always loved thee, but now I'll love thee more than ever, if only thou wilt mix us a bowl of punch in right good Irish fashion, so that in it we may drown all enmity and drink good friendship—and above all toast the divine Kitty Bellairs!"

"Hurroosh," cried O'Hara, and with a valiant gulp determined to swallow his own bitter disappointment and flood in a tide of warm gaiety the cold ache in his heart. "By all means," cried he, wrung Verney's hand with feverish cordiality, and gave one last sadly-longing look at Kitty and his lovely delusive dream.

Then spinning round upon himself he demanded loudly of the willing landlord, lemons and "the craythur—a couple of bottles, my friend—a bowl of sugar and a trifle of wather—the smaller the kittle the better it boils." And: "Wake up, man," cried he, slapping Sir Jasper on the back so that the powder flew from that baronet's queue. "Sure we're all happy, now."

"Where's my wife, sir?" said the gloomy husband, springing to his feet fiercely. "I've been made a fool of between you, but all this does not tell me where my wife is! Stafford, man, I see it now: this has been a blind." He struck his forehead. "Ha, yes I have it now, it was a false scent—the villain, the fox is off with her on another road, with his tongue in his cheek, grinning to think of me sitting and waiting for them at Devizes!—Tom, the chaise, the horses! There's not a moment to be lost!"

"Devil a horse or chay for me, sir," cried his friend. And nodding at Kitty: "I know when I'm in good company," he pursued, "if you don't.—Sit down, man, there's punch brewing. Your vengeance will keep hot enough, ha, ha, but the punch won't."

"Glory be to God," cried O'Hara, staring at Sir Jasper as if he were a natural curiosity, "I've known many a madman, but I never knew one mad enough yet to run away from a punch-bowl!"

With lace ruffles neatly turned back from his deft hands, O'Hara began to peel the lemons.

"Do you," now said Captain Spicer with an ingratiating chirp. "Do you really care for quite so much peel in the bowl ... ahem?"

The speaker stopped suddenly and seemed to wither quite away under a sudden look from the punch-brewer (who had made a movement as though to put his knife and lemons down and employ his fingers differently) and the next instant found him whispering in Stafford's ear:

"You're a man of the world, I know, friend Stafford," said he. "No doubt you will laugh at my over-nice sense of delicacy, but just now, in his ravings, poor O'Hara made a kind of threat, I believe, about pulling my nose. What would you advise me to do in the matter? Look over it, eh?"

"Certainly," cried the spark, with a glance of the most airy contempt. "Look over it, as straight as you can. Look over it, by all means, but as you value the symmetry of that ornament to your countenance, Captain Spicer—if I were you I should keep it well-buttered."

*****

With an art of which he alone was master, Captain Spicer hereupon vanished from the company, without being missed.