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Chapter 8

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For a few moments Lady de Genneville found herself alone with the two Frenchmen, wishing heartily that they would take their leave, for her eyes had searched the crowd below until they rested on the grey domino who awhile ago had been pointed out to her. Her glance attracted his, and presently she made a slight movement with her hand which he seemed to interpret as an invitation, for, after a bow of acknowledgment, he moved away from the pillar and anon disappeared through one of the swing doors.

Apparently Monsieur Otto had also followed the direction of her ladyship’s gaze, for he said in that dry, unemotional manner of his: “I shall be interested to meet the young rascal.”

She looked up, slightly puzzled. “Young rascal?” she said, frowning. “Surely you don’t mean...?”

“Lord Saint-Denys. He is coming, I think, to pay his respects...”

Her ladyship bridled. “How dare you?” was what she very nearly said, but recollecting her manners towards Bonaparte’s envoy she merely queried coldly, “Why should your Excellency call Lord Saint-Denys a rascal?”

“Dear lady,” Monsieur Otto rejoined in that throaty tone which more than suggested his German origin, “his lordship’s reputation—debts, quarrels, even duels, I am told, make up the sum total of that young wastrel’s life.”

“La! what’s that, I pray you?” she retorted. “He is a gentleman, he is young and he is English, so of course he gambles and fights and makes love to every pretty woman he meets.”

Then as Monsieur Otto remained silent, conscious that he had obviously made a faux pas, she continued with well-controlled vehemence:

“Your Excellency called Lord Saint-Denys a wastrel, forgetting that he spent the best years of his life in fighting his country’s quarrels, neglecting his fortune while he shared every conceivable hardship with the soldiers under his command. At Wetzlar—surely you heard it recounted?—with five wounds in his body and wellnigh bleeding to death he rallied his men around the flag, threatened by a picked body of your Bonaparte’s hussars, and held out against vastly superior numbers for two hours till, exhausted, some thought dying, he carried the colours to safety.”

Her voice broke; she was on the verge of tears.

“Rascal, he?” she continued indignantly. “The hero of a hundred gallant fights. A madcap, if you like, but in England few names in the military annals of this awful war are more honoured than his.”

The ghost of a smile flickered round the Frenchman’s lips. “Your ladyship knows how to defend a friend,” he said.

“When a brave man is attacked,” she murmured, already half ashamed of her outburst.

“I did not intend to attack Lord Saint-Denys,” Monsieur Otto hastened to assure her. “That would indeed be presumption on my part. I used the word ‘rascal’ wrongly, of course. I wanted to convey in my faulty English the meaning of our excellent French expression ‘mauvais sujet.’ We, in France, have a great weakness for a mauvais sujet, and even your ladyship will admit that the hero of a hundred fights is very often that. I am told that he lost the tattered remnants of his fortune at cards in one night.”

“Oh, that!” Lady de Genneville rejoined, somewhat mollified. “That is true enough. He and a few others of our jeunesse dorée did once, not so long ago, fall a victim to a gang of foreign aristocrats who were mere cardsharpers and who pigeon-fleeced them most handsomely, and then made good their escape out of the country. Saint-Denys and the others were home on leave from the war and their spirits ran high ... Martin, of a truth, lost a considerable sum that night.”

“A sum that should have gone to his creditors, so they say.”

“Perhaps,” she retorted dryly; “but anyway he punished those sharks in a manner they are not like to forget.”

“And how did our young hero accomplish that?” the Frenchman asked, smiling.

“Your mauvais sujet, Excellency, as soon as he had made up his mind to punish the rogues who had swindled him and his friends, tracked them down to Holland where they had taken refuge. He had less than a month at his disposal before rejoining the troops, but within a fortnight he had got in touch with them, bamboozled them so that they followed him to England, and then set the police on their heels, and now they are cooling them in Wandsworth Jail and are for ever debarred from exercising their nefarious trade again.”

“How interesting!” His Excellency remarked. “But why are they debarred? Surely in England you do not hang cardsharpers?”

“No, Excellency, we do not,” here broke in a pleasant, if somewhat drawly voice from the rear of the box. “My respects to you, sir, and let me repeat we do not hang cardsharpers, though we certainly ought to.”

Lady de Genneville gave a startled little cry, for the door of the box had been noiselessly opened and it was not until the tall figure in the grey domino was quite close to her that she was aware of his presence. He bent low over the pretty hand that was graciously extended to him, and then gave the French plenipotentiaries a courteous bow.

“You were honouring me, sir,” he said, addressing Monsieur Otto, “by speaking of me?”

“Indeed we were, milor,” the ambassador replied, “until the moment when I marvelled how a number of cardsharpers whom your laws do not punish with death are debarred from further mischief. We have many rogues in France these days, and I would like to know how the miracle was accomplished.”

“’Twas no miracle, sir,” Saint-Denys rejoined lightly. “The police being somewhat slow in their methods I took advantage of a day’s leisure to go and meet at Harwich that gang of miscreants who had just arrived from Holland. I spent half an hour, sir, in a private room of the ‘Merry Jack Tar’ inn in cutting off the right ear of each of the rapscallions who had robbed me and my friends, and making them disgorge their booty as a ransom for their left ear. Frankly, do you think that in future any gentleman would sit down and play cards with men who had only one ear?”

“You did that, milor?”

It was Colonel Lauriston who had spoken. He regarded Saint-Denys with a stare which was almost ludicrous in its obvious astonishment and horror. Monsieur Otto, being more diplomatic, became apparently absorbed in the contemplation of the crowd down below. Saint-Denys broke into loud laughter.

“I would like to make a guess, Monsieur le Colonel,” he said lightly, “as to what your thoughts are at this moment. May I try?”

Colonel Lauriston made a polite gesture of assent.

“You were thinking, sir,” Saint-Denys continued unperturbed, “what savages these English are!”

Lauriston tried to protest.

“Milor, I assure you—”

“Nay! Do not apologise, I entreat. I am so ready to admit that we English are savages. In matters of honour certainly. Now your civilised Frenchman would have fought a well-ordered duel over this affair, and given a lot of rascals vast satisfaction probably by getting pinked for his pains.”

He paused for a moment and laughed again. It was an infectious laugh in which all but the two Frenchmen joined heartily. Then he concluded lightly:

“We in England, sir, get more satisfaction out of cutting a noble rascal’s ears, than by the display of elegant swordsmanship.”

With that he rose, bowed very politely, if somewhat ironically to the Frenchmen; then turned to offer his arm to the lovely Charmion.

“What says your ladyship?” he murmured; “shall this rascal have the privilege of escorting you to supper?”

And thus was the incident closed. Chatting, laughing, flirting, Lady de Genneville, on the arm of his lordship, made her way toward the supper-room, leaving the two Frenchmen, after the exchange of conventional courtesies, to marvel at the eccentricities of these mad English.

A Joyous Adventure

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