Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/89

 Ahlberg and shake him as a mastiff would a terrier. He stood still for a moment or two and then stepping up close to Ahlberg, said to him: "You are a scoundrel."

Ahlberg grew perfectly rigid. This blunt, Anglo-Saxon way of picking a quarrel amazed him. He brought his heels together, and stood up very erect, in the first position of dancing, and said:

"This is most extraordinary. Does Monsieur know that but one result can follow this?"

"Anything you please," answered Pembroke, carelessly, "but if you force me to fight I will certainly kill you. You know something of my pistol practice."

Ahlberg hesitated a moment, and then drawing up his sleeve, exposed a great red knot on his right arm.

"If I desired to take advantage of you I might say that you knew my pistol arm was disabled. I got this six months ago—and it will be six months more before it is well. The paralysis is still partial. But as soon as I can trust it, you will hear from me."

"By all means," answered Pembroke.

Then they touched their hats ceremoniously, and went their way, Pembroke plunging through the brushwood on the side of the road with his dog at his heels.

Pembroke never despised himself more than at that moment. Here was he involved in a quarrel with a man for whom he felt a thorough con