"What could be more equivocal, as Lady Loftus admitted, than the circumstances under which we found them? He was supporting—actually caressing her; and then there was his proffered fifty-pound note. My dear fellow, people are not such devilish fools as—aw—to give fifty pounds to such girls for—aw—nothing!" "Whatever you may pretend to think, or affect to say, of that affair, of my friend’s ultimate intentions, as a man of spirit, you cannot be unaware." "Aw—I don’t choose to speculate upon them." "This trifling, sir, is insufferable! He may lash you in the face with his whip before the whole regiment, when Beverley wheels it into line to-morrow, and so make you a scandal to us, to Maidstone, and the entire British Army, from the Life Guards to the Cape Rifles." "Lash me?" "Yes; and soundly too!" "I don’t think he will." "Why?" "For then the whole story would come out, there would be an arrest—aw—and court of inquiry, and my Lady Louisa Loftus would have her august name paragraphed in every paper, from the _Morning Post_ downwards." "And under this belief in his forbearance, which pays my friend a high compliment, you actually shelter yourself?" said worthy Jack Studhome, with intense scorn. "I shall take my chance." "Then, sir, cunning as you are, and though believing that my friend must submit to lie under a vile imputation, and, if it so happen, be ruined with Lady Louisa Loftus and his friends, you cannot expect to get off scot free. The devil! we live in strange times. Are we sunk so low that officers and gentlemen, that honourable and gallant members, that noble lords, that counsellors learned in the law, and even jolly students, are to settle their disputes in pothouse fashion, by womanly vituperation or vulgar fisticuffs, without ever dreaming of a recourse to the pistol? Men of all ranks, from the premier peer down to the anonymous scribblers of the daily press— Those grovelling, trodden, whipt, stript, turncoat things, Made up of volumes, venom, stains, and stings,— may now brand each other as liars, cowards, and ruffians, with perfect impunity. Do you understand me, sir?" "Not quite." "How so? I speak plain enough!" "Such fellows are—aw—out of my way." "Then you will understand this, sir," said Studhome, grasping him fiercely by the shoulder, and with an expression in his eye which made even the insouciance of Berkeley to evaporate, "a few weeks must see us in the Levant, on the shores of Turkey, and before the enemy. A duel shall come off there, and to evade alike the laws of Britain and the rules of the service, the seconds shall bind themselves by a solemn promise to declare that he who may be wounded, or he who may be killed, was struck by a chance shot from the enemy. You comprehend this arrangement, sir?" "Perfectly." "And your friend—who is he to be?" "Captain Scriven, of ours." "Good—I shall see him instantly." "So that was your arrangement, Studhome?" asked Beverley.