The catastrophe approached consummation with the inevitableness of a Greek tragedy. Lucian waxed gloomier and gloomier; Sprats endeavoured, agonisingly, to put things on a better footing; Haidee, now thoroughly enjoying herself, tried hard to make the other boy also jealous. But the other boy was too full of the joy of life to be jealous of anything; he gambolled about like a young elephant, and nearly as gracefully; it was quite evident that he loved horseplay and believed that girls were as much inclined to it as boys. At any other time Sprats would have fallen in with his mood and frolicked with him to his heart’s content; on this occasion she was afraid of Lucian, who now looked more like a young Greek god than ever. The lightning was already playing about his eyes; thunder sat on his brows. At last the storm burst. Haidee wanted to shoot with bow and arrow at a target; she despatched the two youngsters into the great hall of the Castle to fetch the materials for archery. Dickie went off capering and whistling; Lucian followed in sombre silence. And inside the vaulted hall, mystic with the gloom of the past, and romantic with suits of armour, tattered banners, guns, pikes, bows, and the rest of it, the smouldering fires of Lucian’s wrath burst out. Master Richard Feversham found himself confronted by a figure which typified Wrath, and Indignation, and Retribution. ‘You are a cad!’ said Lucian. ‘Cad yourself!’ retorted Dickie. ‘Who are _you_ talking to?’ ‘I am talking to you,’ answered Lucian, stern and cold as a stone figure of Justice. ‘I say you are a cad--a cad! You have grossly insulted a young lady, and I will punish you.’ Dickie’s eyes grew round--he wondered if the other fellow had suddenly gone off his head, and if he’d better call for help and a strait waistcoat. ‘Grossly insulted--a young lady!’ he said, puckering up his face with honest amazement. ‘What the dickens do you mean? You must be jolly well dotty!’ ‘You have insulted Miss Brinklow,’ said Lucian. ‘You forced your unwelcome attentions upon her all the afternoon, though she showed you plainly that they were distasteful to her, and you were finally rude and brutal to her--beast!’ ‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Dickie, now thoroughly amazed, ‘I never forced any attention on her--we were only larking. Rude? Brutal? Good heavens!--I only kissed her behind the hedge, and I’ve kissed her many a time before!’ Lucian became insane with wrath. ‘Liar!’ he hissed. ‘Liar!’ Master Richard Feversham straightened himself, mentally as well as physically. He bunched up his fists and advanced upon Lucian with an air that was thoroughly British. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I don’t know who the devil you are, you outrageous ass, but if you call me a liar again, I’ll hit you!’ ‘Liar!’ said Lucian, ‘Liar!’ Dickie’s left fist, clenched very artistically, shot out like a small battering-ram, and landed with a beautiful _plunk_ on Lucian’s cheek, between the jaw and the bone. He staggered back.