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Ebook has 1792 lines and 94941 words, and 36 pages

"Oh, give your rotten ball!" said Her Highness sleepily.

Not among the last to arrive was my lord Viscount Quorn, a young nobleman whose handsome looks and plausible address were fated to be as a snare and a delusion to those who were not immediately informed as to his disordered temperament and irregular habits. Yet, although many a pretty young lady had lived to regret with burning tears the confidence she had been persuaded to misplace in that young gallant's code of chivalry, not a man in England could be found to impugn my lord's honour; for was he not renowned from Ranelagh to Meadowbrook for his incomparable agility, did not Australian cricketers wince at the mere mention of the name of Quorn, and did any soldier present on the high occasion we tell of wear pinned across his breast braver emblems of gallantry in war?

With him to the Duke's ball came his boon companion, Mr. Woodhouse Adams, a gentleman whose claim to the regard of his familiars was based solidly on the fact that he knew a horse when he saw one; yet so great was his reserve that what he knew when he did not see a horse was a secret which Mr. Woodhouse Adams jealously guarded from even his most intimate friends. On this occasion, however, as they walked up the red carpet to the open doors of the house in the walled garden, Mr. Woodhouse Adams appeared to be unable to control a particular indignation, and presently spoke to the following effect:

"If you ask my opinion, Condor, I think you are putting your jaws into the lion's head."

"I gather," said Lord Quorn, whose nickname took the peculiar form of Condor for reasons which are quite foreign to this story, "that you mean I am putting my head into the lion's jaws. It may be so. But I tell you, Charles, that I am in love with this girl. At last, I am in love. And I am not going to miss the most slender chance of seeing her again--not to speak of my desire to take this unrivalled opportunity of paying my respects to her father with a view to a matrimonial entanglement."

"You're not going to do that!" incredulously cried his friend.

"Almost at once," said Lord Quorn.

"Gentlemen's Cloak-Room on the left," said a Hussar of Death or Honour.

"Am I speaking to milord Quorn?" asked a page bearing a salver of gold.

"You are, boy."

"Then I have the honour, milord, to be the bearer of a note to milord from my mistress, Her Select Highness the Princess Baba."

"Well, don't shout the glad news all over the Cloak-Room," said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

"Go tell Her Highness," said my lord to the boy, "that I shall beg the honour of the first dance with her."

"Milord, I go!" said the page, and went.

"I don't like that boy," said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

"This note," said Lord Quorn, "touches me very nearly."

"Good Lord, Condor, she doesn't want to borrow money from you already! Gad, my father was right when he told me on his death-bed never to have any financial dealings with Royalty. His exact words were: 'It takes four Greeks to get the better of a Jew, three Jews to deal with an Armenian, two Armenians to a Scot, and the whole damn lot together to withstand the shock of Royalty in search of real-estate.'"

"My friend, there is but a line in this letter, yet I would not exchange this one line for all the rhapsodies of the poets. For in this one line," sighed Lord Quorn, "the Princess Baba tells me that she loves me."

"No girl," gallantly admitted his friend, "can say fairer than that."

"It is certainly very encouraging," said my lord.

"Gentlemen's Cloak-Room to the right!" said a Hussar of Death or Honour.

"Thank you, we've been," said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

At the head of the stairs, indeed, His Highness was receiving his guests with all the circumstance of Royalty. He held great state, this puissant prince who had so notably enriched the land of his fathers by an heroic neutrality throughout the war. He wore the blue cordon of the Order of Credit and, over his heart, the Diamond Cross of Discretion. He said:

"How do you do, Lord Quorn?"

"Thank you, sir, I am very well," returned my lord.

"And you, Mr. Woodhouse Eves?"

"Adams to you, sir," said that gentleman. "But otherwise I am well, thank you."

"Lord Quorn," His Highness cordially continued, "I am really most pleased that you could accept my invitation."

"You do me too much honour, sir. And may I take it that your courtesy in selecting me for an invitation for your probably enjoyable ball is a sign of your gracious forgiveness?"

"You may, Lord Quorn."

"Then I have the honour, sir, to declare myself, without any reserve whatsoever, to be your Highness's most obedient servant."

"And I, sir," said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

"Gentlemen," said His Highness, "you are very kind."

"Your condescension, sir, but points our crudity," protested my lord. "May I, however, further trespass on your indulgence by asking to be allowed to enroll myself as the humblest among your daughter's suitors?"

"We can talk this matter out more comfortably," said His Highness agreeably, "in my study. Ho, there! Ho, page!"

"Conduct milord Quorn and Mr. Woodhouse Eves to my study, and see to it that they have suitable refreshment. Lord Quorn, I will join you not a moment after I have received my guests."

"I'm not sure I like this study business," said Mr. Woodhouse Adams as they followed the page through many halls and corridors to a distant part of the house in the walled garden. They passed through marble halls radiant with slender columns and crystal fountains, through arcades flaming with flowers in vases of Venetian glass, beneath sombre tapestries of the chase after fabulous beasts, by tables of satinwood and cabinets of ebony, jade and pearl: until at last they were conducted to a quiet-seeming door, and were no sooner within than what appeared to be a regiment of Hussars of Death or Honour had pinioned their arms to their sides.

"This is outrage!" cried my lord with very cold eyes.

"Gentlemen, you are under arrest," said an officer with moustachios whose name the chronicler has unfortunately overlooked.

"We're under what?" cried Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

"And you will await His Highness's pleasure in this room," said the officer with moustachios, but he had no sooner spoken than the Duke entered, followed by a lean young officer with pitiless eyes.

Not so Lord Quorn. "Sir," cried he, "this is outrage and assault on the persons of King George's subjects. Do you forget that you are in England, sir?"

"Silence!" thundered the officer with moustachios.

"Silence be damned!" cried Mr. Woodhouse Adams. "Your Highness, what can this piracy mean? I wish to lodge a formal complaint."

"Sir, take it as lodged," said His Highness graciously, but it was with lowered brows that he turned to address my lord.

"Lord Quorn," said he, "it was my first intention to have you shot like a dog. But I have suffered myself to be dissuaded from consigning you to that ignominious fate at the intercession of this gentleman here. I present Captain Count Rupprecht Saxem?nden von Maxe-Middengr?fen."

"Oh, have a heart!" gasped Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

But Lord Quorn, being a much-travelled gentleman whose ears were hardened against the most surprising sounds, merely said: "How do you do?"

"Such information, sir, is not for scum!" snapped the lean young officer with the pitiless eyes.

"Were I to hit you once," said Lord Quorn gently, looking at him as though he smelt so bad that he could readily understand why the dustman had refused to remove him, "your mother would not know you. Were I to hit you twice, she would not want to. Think it over."

"Your differences will soon be arranged," sternly continued His Highness. "Count Rupprecht has very properly put before me certain reasons which give him an undoubted right to be the agent of your destruction. The course of this night, Lord Quorn, shall see you as a duellist. And I can only hope that you have some knowledge of swordsmanship, for Count Rupprecht Saxem?nden von Maxe-Middengr?fen is the first swordsman of Valeria.

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