He sought me out just before luncheon¹. I was in the courtyard, listening patiently to Jasper Jr.'s theories and suggestions concerning the restoration of the entire facade² of the castle, and what he'd do if he were in my place. Strange to say, I was considerably³ entertained; he was not at all offensive; on the contrary, he offered his ideas in a pleasantly ingenuous⁴ way, always supplementing them with some such salve as: "Don't you think so, Mr. Smart?" or "I'm sure you have thought of it yourself," or "Isn't that your idea, too?" or "You've done wonders with the joint⁵, old man."  
Colingraft came directly up to where we were standing⁷. There was trouble in his eye.
 
"See here, Mr. Smart," he began austerely⁸. "I've got something to say to you, and I'm not the sort to put it off. I appreciate what you've done for Aline and all that sort of thing, but your manner to-day has been intolerable, and we've got to come to an understanding."
 
I eyed him closely. "I suppose you're about to suggest that one or the other of us must—evacuate—get out, so to speak," said I.
 
"Don't talk rubbish. You've got my mother bawling⁹ her eyes out upstairs, and wishing she were dead. You've got to come off this high horse of yours. You've got to apologise to her, and damned quick, at that. Understand?"
 
"Nothing will give me greater joy than to offer her my most abject¹⁰ apology, Mr. Titus, unless it would be her unqualified forgiveness."
 
"You'll have to withdraw everything you said."
 
"I'll withdraw everything except my ultimatum¹² in respect to her putting a foot outside these walls. That still stands."
 
"I beg to differ with you."
 
"You may beg till you're black in the face," said I coolly.
 
He swallowed hard. His face twitched¹³, and his hands were clenched¹⁴.
 
"You are pretty much of a mucker, Mr. Smart," he said, between his teeth. "I'm sorry my sister has fallen into your hands. The worst of it is, she seems satisfied with everything you do. Good Lord! What she can see in you is beyond my comprehension. Protection! Why you couldn't protect her from the assault of a chicken."
 
"Are you trying to insult me, Mr. Titus?"
 
"You couldn't resent it if I were. There never was an author with enough moral backbone¹⁵ to—"
 
"Wait! You are her brother. I don't want to have trouble with you. But if you keep on in this strain, Mr. Titus, I shall be compelled to thresh you soundly."
 
He fairly gasped¹⁶. "Th—thresh me!" he choked out. Then he advanced.
 
Much to his surprise—and, strangely enough, not to my own—I failed to retreat. Instead, I extended my left fist with considerable abruptness¹⁷ and precision and he landed on his back.
 
I experienced a sensation of unholy joy. Up to that moment I had wondered whether I could do it with my left hand.
 
I looked at Jasper, Jr. He was staring at me in utter bewilderment.
 
"Good Lord! You—you've knocked him down!"
 
"I didn't think I could do it," said I hazily¹⁹.
 
He sprang to his brother's side, and assisted him to a sitting posture²⁰.
 
"Right to the jaw²¹," shouted Jasper, with a strange enthusiasm.
 
"Left," I corrected him.
 
Colingraft gazed about him in a stupid, vacant fashion for a moment, and then allowed his glazed²² eyes to rest upon me. He sat rather limply, I thought.
 
"Are you hurt, Colly?" cried Jasper, Jr.
 
A sickly grin, more of surprise than shame, stole over Colingraft's face. He put his hand to his jaw; then to the back of his head.
 
"By Jove!" he murmured. "I—I didn't think he had it in him. Let me get up!"
 
Jasper, Jr. was discreet²³. "Better let well enough alone, old—"
 
"I intend to," said Colingraft, as he struggled to his feet.
 
For a moment he faced me, uncertainly.
 
"I'm sorry, Mr. Titus," said I calmly.
 
"You—you are a wonder!" fell from his lips. "I'm not a coward, Mr. Smart. I've boxed a good deal in my time, but—by Jove, I never had a jolt²⁴ like that."
 
He turned abruptly²⁵ and left us. We followed him slowly toward the steps. At the bottom he stopped and faced me again.
 
"You're a better man than I thought," he said. "If you'll bury the hatchet²⁶, so will I. I take back what I said to you, not because I'm afraid of you, but because I respect you. What say? Will you shake hands?"
 
The surly, arrogant²⁷ expression was gone from his face. In its place was a puzzled, somewhat inquiring look.
 
"No hard feeling on my part," I cried gladly. We shook hands. Jasper, Jr. slapped me on the back. "It's a most distressing²⁸, atavistic habit I'm getting into, knocking people down without rhyme or reason."
 
"I daresay you had reason," muttered Colingraft. "I got what was coming to me." An eager light crept into his handsome eyes. "By Jove, we can get in some corking²⁹ work with the gloves while I'm here. I box quite a bit at home, and I miss it travelling about like this. What say to a half-hour or so every day? I have the gloves in one of my trunks. I'm getting horribly seedy. I need stirring up."
 
"Charmed, I'm sure," I said, assuming an enthusiasm I did not feel. Put on the gloves with this strapping³⁰, skillful boxer³¹? Not I! I was firmly resolved to stop while my record was good. In a scientific clash with the gloves he would soon find out what a miserable³² duffer I was.
 
"And Jappy, here, is no slouch. He's as shifty as the dickens."
 
"The shiftier the better," said I, with great aplomb³³. Jasper, Jr., stuck out his chest modestly, and said: "Oh, piffle, Colly." But just the same I hadn't the least doubt in my mind that Jasper could "put it all over me." It was a rather sickening admission, though strictly³⁴ private.
 
We made our way to my study, where I mildly suggested that we refrain from mentioning our little encounter to Mrs. Titus or the Countess. I thought Colingraft was especially pleased with the idea. We swore secrecy³⁵.
 
"I've always been regarded as a peaceful, harmless grub," I explained, still somewhat bewildered by the feat³⁶ I had performed, and considerably shaken by the fear that I was degenerating³⁷ into a positive ruffian. "You will believe me, I hope, when I declare that I was merely acting³⁹ in self-defence when I—"
 
He actually laughed. "Don't apologise." He could not resist the impulse to blurt⁴⁰ out once more: "By Jove, I didn't think you could do it."
 
"With my left hand, too," I said wonderingly. Catching⁴¹ myself up, I hastily changed the subject.
 
A little later on, as Colingraft left the room, slyly feeling of his jaw, Jasper, Jr. whispered to me excitedly: "You've got him eating out of your hand, old top."
 
Things were coming to a pretty pass, said I to myself when I was all alone. It certainly is a pretty pass when one knocks down the ex-husband and the brother of the woman he loves, and quite without the least suspicion of an inherited pugnacity⁴².
 
I had a little note from the Countess that afternoon, ceremoniously delivered by Helene Marie Louise Antoinette. It read as follows:
 
"You did Colingraft a very good turn when you laid him low this morning. He is tiresomely⁴³ interested in his prowess as a box-maker, or a boxster, or whatever it is in athletic⁴⁵ parlance⁴⁶. He has been like a lamb all afternoon and he really can't get over the way you whacked⁴⁸ him. (Is whack⁴⁷ the word?) At first he was as mum as could be about it, but I think he really felt relieved when I told him I had seen the whole affair from a window in my hall. You see it gave him a chance to explain how you got in the whack, and I have been obliged to listen to intermittent⁴⁹ lectures on the manly⁵⁰ art of self-defence all afternoon, first from him, then from Jappy. I have a headache, and no means of defence. He admits that he deserved it, but I am not surprised. Colly is a sporting chap. He hasn't a mean drop of blood in his body. You have made a friend of him. So please don't feel that I hold a grudge⁵¹ against you for what you did. The funny part of it all is that mamma quite agrees with him. She says he deserved it! Mamma is wonderful, really, when it comes to a pinch. She has given up all thought of 'putting a foot outside the castle.' Can you have luncheon with us to-morrow? Would it be too much trouble if we were to have it in the loggia? I am just mad to get out-of-doors if only for an hour or two in that walled-in spot. Mr. Poopendyke has been perfectly⁵² lovely. He came up this morning to tell me that you haven't sneezed at all and there isn't the remotest chance now that you will have a cold. It seems he was afraid you might. You must have a very rugged⁵³ constitution. Britton told Blake that most men would have died from exposure if they had been put in your place. How good you are to me.
 
 
 
I shall skip over the rather uninteresting events of the next two or three days. Nothing of consequence happened, unless you are willing to consider important two perfectly blissful nights of sleep on my part. Also, I had the pleasure of taking the Countess "out walking" in my courtyard, to use a colloquialism⁵⁴: once in the warm, sweet sunshine, again 'neath the glow of a radiant moon. She had not been outside the castle walls, literally⁵⁵, in more than five weeks, and the colour leaped back into her cheeks with a rush that delighted me. I may mention in passing that I paid particular attention to her suggestion concerning my dilapidated, gone-to-seed garden, although I had been bored to extinction⁵⁶ by Jasper, Jr. when he undertook to enlighten me horticulturally. She agreed to come forth⁵⁷ every day and assist me in building the poor thing up; propping⁵⁸ it, so to speak.
 
As for Mrs. Titus, that really engaging lady made life so easy for me that I wondered why I had ever been apprehensive⁵⁹. She was quite wonderful when "it came to a pinch." I began to understand a good many things about her, chief among them being her unvoiced theories on matrimony. While she did not actually commit herself, I had no difficulty in ascertaining⁶⁰ that, from her point of view, marriages are not made in heaven, and that a properly arranged divorce is a great deal less terrestrial than it is commonly supposed to be. She believed in matrimony as a trial and divorce as a reward, or something to that effect.
 
My opinion seemed to carry considerable weight with her. For a day or two after our somewhat sanguinary encounter, she was prone⁶¹ to start—even to jump slightly—when I addressed myself to her with unintentional directness. She soon got over that, however.
 
We were discussing Aline's unfortunate venture into the state of matrimony and I, feeling temporarily august and superior, managed to say the wrong thing and in doing so put myself in a position from which I could not recede⁶² without loss of dignity. If my memory serves me correctly I remarked, with some asperity⁶³, that marriages of that kind never turned out well for any one except the bridegroom.
 
She looked at me coldly. "I am afraid, Mr. Smart, that you have been putting some very bad notions into my daughter's head," she said.
 
"Bad notions?" I murmured.
 
"She has developed certain pronounced and rather extraordinary views concerning the nobility as the result of your—ah—argument, I may say."
 
"I'm very sorry. I know one or two exceedingly nice noblemen, and I've no doubt there are a great many more. She must have misunderstood me. I wasn't running down the nobility, Mrs. Titus. I was merely questioning the advisability of elevating it in the way we Americans sometimes do."
 
"You did not put it so adroitly⁶⁴ in discussing the practice with Aline," she said quickly. "Granted that her own marriage was a mistake,—a dreadful mistake,—it does not follow that all international matches are failures. I would just as soon be unhappily married to a duke as to a dry-goods merchant, Mr. Smart."
 
"But not at the same price, Mrs. Titus," I remarked.
 
She smiled. "A husband is dear at any price."
 
"I shouldn't put it just that way," I protested. "A good American husband is a necessity, not a luxury."
 
"Well, to go back to what I started to say, Aline is very bitter about matrimony as viewed from my point of view. I am sorry to say I attribute her attitude to your excellent counselling."
 
"You flatter me. I was under the impression she took her lessons of Tarnowsy."
 
"Granted. But Tarnowsy was unfit. Why tar¹⁸ all of them with the same stick? There are good noblemen, you'll admit."
 
"But they don't need rehabilitation⁶⁶."
 
"Aline, I fear, will never risk another experiment. It's rather calamitous⁶⁷, isn't it? When one stops to consider her youth, beauty and all the happiness there may be—"
 
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Titus, but I think your fears are groundless."
 
"What do you mean?"
 
"The Countess will marry again. I am not betraying a secret, because she has intimated as much to my secretary as well as to me. I take it that as soon as this unhappy affair is settled, she will be free to reveal the true state of her feelings toward—" I stopped, somewhat dismayed by my garrulous⁶⁸ turn.
 
"Toward whom?" she fairly snapped.
 
"I don't know," I replied truthfully—and, I fear, lugubriously⁷⁰.
 
"Good heaven!" she cried, starting up from the bench on which we were sitting in the loggia. There was a queer expression in her eyes. "Hasn't—hasn't she ever hinted at—hasn't she mentioned any one at all?"
 
"Not to me."
 
Mrs. Titus was agitated⁷¹, I could see that very plainly. A thoughtful frown appeared on her smooth brow, and a gleam of anxiety sprang into her eyes.
 
"I am sure that she has had no opportunity to—" She did not complete the sentence, in which there was a primary note of perplexity and wonder.
 
It grilled⁷² me to discover that she did not even so much as take me into consideration.
 
"You mean since the—er—divorce?" I inquired.
 
"She has been in seclusion⁷³ all of the time. She has seen no man,—that is to say, no man for whom she could possibly entertain a—But, of course, you are mistaken in your impression, Mr. Smart. There is absolutely nothing in what you say."
 
"A former sweetheart, antedating⁷⁴ her marriage," I suggested hopelessly.
 
"She has no sweetheart. Of that I am positive," said she with conviction.
 
"She must have had an army of admirers. They were legion after her marriage, I may be pardoned for reminding you."
 
She started. "Has she never mentioned Lord Amberdale to you?" she asked.
 
"Amberdale?" I repeated, with a queer sinking of the heart. "No, Mrs. Titus. An Englishman?"
 
She was mistress of herself once more. In a very degage manner she informed me that his lordship, a most attractive and honourable⁷⁵ young Englishman, had been one of Aline's warmest friends at the time of the divorce proceedings⁷⁶. But, of course, there was nothing in that! They had been good friends for years, nothing more, and he was a perfect dear.
 
But she couldn't fool me. I could see that there was something working at the back of her mind, but whether she was distressed⁷⁷ or gratified I was not by way of knowing.
 
"I've never heard her mention Lord Amberdale," said I.
 
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Had I but known, the mere³⁸ fact that the Countess had not spoken of his lordship provided her experienced mother with an excellent reason for believing that there was something between them. She abruptly brought the conversation to a close and left me, saying that she was off for her beauty nap.
 
Alone, I soon became a prey

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