“Quite unfit to be received in respectable society, I assure you, General!  Came of a wretchedly degraded set, the lowest of the low, upon my honor.  This fellow—­”

Claudia touched his shoulder with the end of her fan.

Alfred Burghe turned sharply around and confronted Miss Merlin, and on meeting her eyes grew as pale as she was herself.

“Captain Burghe,” she said, modulating her voice to low and courteous tones, “you have had the misfortune to malign one of our most esteemed friends, at present a member of our household.  I regret this accident exceedingly, as it puts me under the painful necessity of requesting you to leave the house with as little delay as possible!”

“Miss Merlin—­ma’am!” began the captain, crimsoning with shame and rage.

“You have heard my request, sir!  I have no more to say but to wish you a very good evening,” said Claudia, as with a low and sweeping courtesy she turned away.

Passing near the hall where the footmen waited, she spoke to one of them, saying: 

“Powers, attend that gentleman to the front door.”

All this was done so quietly that Alfred Burghe was able to slink from the room, unobserved by anyone except the little group around the sofa, whom he had been entertaining with his calumnies.  To them he had muttered that he would have satisfaction; that he would call Miss Merlin’s father to a severe account for the impertinence of his daughter, etc.

But the consternation produced by these threats was soon dissipated.  The band struck up an alluring waltz, and Lord Vincent claimed the hand of Beatrice, and Ishmael, smiling, radiant and unsuspicious, came in search of Miss Tourneysee, who accepted his hand for the dance without an instant’s hesitation.

“Do you know”—­inquired Miss Tourneysee, with a little curiosity to ascertain whether there was any mutual enmity between Burghe and Ishmael—­“do you know who that Captain Burghe is that danced the last quadrille with me?”

“Yes; he is the son of the late Commodore Burghe, who was a gallant officer, a veteran of 1812, and did good service during the last War of Independence,” said Ishmael generously, uttering not one word against his implacable foe.

Miss Tourneysee looked at him wistfully and inquired:  “Is the son as good a man as the father?”

“I have not known Captain Burghe since we were at school together.”

“I do not like him.  I do not think he is a gentleman,” said Miss Tourneysee.

Ishmael did not reply.  It was not his way to speak even deserved evil of the absent.

But Miss Tourneysee drew a mental comparison between the meanness of Alfred’s conduct and the nobility of Ishmael’s.  And the dance succeeded the conversation.

Claudia remained sitting on the sofa beside Mrs. Middleton, until at the close of the dance, when she was rejoined by the viscount, who did not leave her again during the evening.