“I feel an almost overwhelming interest in the methods of daylight abduction employed by the modern youth.”
“You may have married her, but she is mine. Do you think I shall let you take her? She may be ten times your wife, but, by God, you shall never have her.”
“I comfort myself with the reflection that your wife will possibly be able to curb your desire--I admit, a natural one for the most part--to exterminate your fellows.”
“You will like her," he persisted. "Egad, she's after your own heart, maman! She shot me in the arm."
"Voyons, do you think that is what I like?”
“My lord said, amongst other things, that he did not propose to burden the doctor with the details of his genealogy. He consigned the doctor and all his works, severally and comprehensively described, to hell, and finished up his epic speech by a pungent and Rabelaisian criticism of the whole race of leeches.”
“I comfort myself with the reflection that your wife will possibly be able to curb your desire - I admit, a natural one for the most part - to exterminate your fellows.”
“You will very soon be. Sit down. Why are you not at the ball?”
“I had no inclination for it, sir. I might ask, why are not you?”
“Not finding you there, I came here,” he replied.
“I am indeed flattered,” said Miss Challoner.
He laughed. “It’s all I went for, my dear, I assure you. Why was that fellow holding your hands?”
“For comfort,” said Miss Challoner desolately.
He held out his own. “Give them to me.”
“Ah, but I’m not a gentleman,” said the Marquis. “I have it on the best of authority that I am only a
nobleman.”
“Good gracious, Vidal, who in the world dared to say such a thing?” cried his cousin, instantly
diverted.
“Mary,” replied his lordship, pouring himself out a glass of wine.”
“Those fine eyes of hers had a disconcertingly direct gaze, and very often twinkled in a manner disturbing to male egotism. She had common-sense too, and what man wanted the plainly matter-of-fact, when he could enjoy instead Sophia's delicious folly?”
“I never drive when I can ride,” said his lordship indifferently.
“I make no doubt at all that had I been Mary Challoner you would have been glad enough to have
borne me company!”
The Marquis was snuffing one of the candles, but he looked up at that, and there was a glint in his eye.
“That, my dear, is quite another matter,” he said.”
“I devoutly hope you are wrong, my dear,” replied his lordship humourously. “For when my father
uses every means to achieve an end, he invariably does achieve it.”
Miss Challoner got up, smiling a little ironically. “Vastly pretty, my lord. I could almost suppose that
you wanted to marry me.”
She moved towards the door which his lordship held open for her. “I assure you, ma’am, I am
becoming hourly more reconciled to the prospect,” he said, and surprised her by taking her hand and
kissing it, very much in the grand manner.”
“It is possible,” said Miss Marling stiffly, “that Frederick and not Mary will have the ordering of the
journey.”
Vidal chuckled. “Not if I know my Mary,” he replied”
“He said nothing. Juliana peeped at him again. “You’re very anxious to get her in your power again,
Vidal. But I don’t quite know why you should be, for you meant to marry her only because you had
ruined her, and so were obliged to, didn’t you?”
She thought that he was not going to answer, but suddenly he raised his eyes from the contemplation
of the dregs of his wine. “Because I am obliged to?” he said. “I mean to marry Mary Challoner
because I’m devilish sure I can’t live without her.”
Juliana clapped her hands with a crow of delight. “Oh, it is famous!” she exclaimed. “I never dreamed
you had fallen in love with my staid Mary! I thought you were chasing her through France just
because you so hate to be crossed! But when you flew into a rage with me for saying she was too dull
to be afraid of you, of course, I guessed at once! My dearest Dominic, I was never more glad of
anything in my life, and it is of all things the most romantic possible! Do, do let us overtake them at
once! Only conceive of their astonishment when they see us!”
“Well, it is very odd of you to threaten to throw your friends out of the window, I must say," remarked Juliana.
He smiled. "Not at all. It is only my friends that I would throw out of the window."
"Dear me!" said Juliana, finding the male sex incomprehensible.
-Chapter XIII”
“Well, if you sat eating as though nothing mattered save your dinner I’m not surprised,” said Juliana
viciously. “If I were not so angry with her, the deceitful, sly wretch, I could pity her for all she must
have undergone at your hands.”
“Seeing me eat was the least of her sufferings,” answered the Marquis. “She underwent much, but it
may interest you to know, Juliana, that she never treated me to the vapours, as you seem like to do.”
“Then I can only say, Vidal, that either she had no notion what a horrid brutal man you are, or that she
is just a dull creature with no nerves at all.”
For a moment Vidal did not answer. Then he said in a level voice: “She knew.” His lip curled. He
glanced scornfully at his cousin. “Had I carried you off as I carried her you would have died of fright
or hysterics, Juliana. Make no mistake, my dear; Mary was so desperately afraid she tried to put a
bullet through me.”
“I didn’t sneer!” said Juliana hastily. “I’d no notion you behaved so dreadfully badly to her. You said
you forced her aboard your yacht, but I never supposed that you really frightened her enough to make
her fire at you. You need not be in a rage with me for saying so, Dominic, but when I saw Mary at
your house she was so placid I made sure you’d not treated her so very brutally after all. Had you?”
“Yes,” said Vidal bluntly. He looked at Juliana. “You think it was vastly romantic for Mary to be
carried off by me, don’t you? You think you would enjoy it, and you cannot conceive how she should
be afraid, can you? Then think, my girl! Think a little! You are in my power at this moment, I may
remind you. What if I make you feel it? What if I say to start with that you shall eat your dinner, and
force it down your throat?”
Juliana shrank back from him involuntarily. “Don’t, Vidal! Don’t come near me!” she said, frightened
by the expression in his face.
He laughed. “Not so romantic, is it, Ju? And to force you to eat your dinner would be a small thing
compared with some other things I might force you to do. Sit down, I’m not going to touch you.”
She obeyed, eyeing him nervously. “I—I wish I hadn’t come with you!” she said.
“So did Mary, with more reason. But Mary would have died sooner than let me see that she was afraid.
And Mary, my love, is not my cousin.”
“I am not in a heat at all,’ Léonie said with great precision. ‘I am of a coolness quite remarkable, and I would like to kill that woman.”
“Read that!” commanded madame dramatically, and handed her a crumpled sheet of paper.
It contained a brief message in Juliana’s sprawling characters: “My dear Tante, pray do not be in a
taking, but I have gone with Vidal. I have No Time to write more, for I am in Desperate Haste.
Juliana.”
“But—but it is not possible!” stammered Léonie, growing quite pale”
“If people are only kind to me I’m sure I am the last person to quarrel with anyone.’ His”
“The landlord was trying to explain that there were a great many English people in his house, all fighting duels or having hysterics.”
“There is a corpse somewhere on the road to town. Mr Fox does not wish it there. Remove it!”
“Oh, yes, well, if he must shoot highwaymen, it’s very well, but to leave the poor man dead on the road – though I make no doubt he would have done the same to Vidal, for I believe they are horridly callous, these fellows – but that’s neither here nor there. Vidal had no right to leave him. Now people will say that he is wickedly blood-thirsty, or something disagreeable, and it is quite true, only one does not want the whole world to say so.”
“My Lord Rupert, who had been listening in rapt admiration to this speech, said in what he imagined to be a whisper: ‘Wonderful, ain’t it, Léonie? Never heard aught to equal it. The boy always talks like that, y’know.”
“This is my cousin, by the way. I dare say you know of him. He is very wicked and kills people in duels. Vidal, this is Frederick.”
“Your presence in England is extremely – shall we say enlivening? – Vidal. But I believe I shall survive the loss of it.”
“I may be a little fool,’ retorted Miss Challoner, plucking up spirit, ‘but at least I meant it for the best. While as for you, my lord, you meant nothing but wicked mischief right from the start.”
“Perceiving that she had constituted herself interpreter, M. Plançon opened negotiations with an impassioned plea to be preserved from these mad Englishmen who expected honest Frenchmen to understand their own barbarous language – and this in France, voyez-vous!”
“Blister me if I can make head or tail of this coil. Vidal’s damned lackeys are as close as a lot of oysters. Y’know, Léonie, the boy’s a marvel, so he is. I never could keep a servant who didn’t blab all my affairs to the world.”
“But it was very stupid of me not to see that of course the friend of Juliana must be this Mary Challoner. It was stupid of you too, Rupert. More stupid.”
“I could manage him,’ she sighed. ‘Oh, but I could!”
“Jayden didn’t take his eyes off me as he put a hand on Blake’s face and shoved him back. “Be gone.”
“But the simple fact of bearing a responsibility can be something that gives meaning to life.”
“The best warrior is dedicated and passionate yet clearheaded. It is not about revenge or victory. It is about honor.”
“ALAS,” said the mouse, “the world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into.” “You only need to change your direction,” said the cat, and ate it up. Translated”
“There was no end date for her sentence in this place. She was a lifer.”
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