’Mind, I give you warning, if you lay a finger on me I’ll knock you down,’ said he.

Most joyfully Mr. Sullivan Smith uttered a low melodious cry.  ’For a specimen of manners, in an assembly of ladies and gentlemen . . .  I ask ye!’ he addressed the ring about him, to put his adversary entirely in the wrong before provoking the act of war.  And then, as one intending gently to remonstrate, he was on the point of stretching out his finger to the shoulder of Mr. Malkin, when Redworth seized his arm, saying:  ’I ‘m your man:  me first:  you’re due to me.’

Mr. Sullivan Smith beheld the vanishing of his foe in a cloud of faces.  Now was he wroth on patently reasonable grounds.  He threatened Saxondom.  Man up, man down, he challenged the race of short-legged, thickset, wooden-gated curmudgeons:  and let it be pugilism if their white livers shivered at the notion of powder and ball.  Redworth, in the struggle to haul him away, received a blow from him.  ’And you’ve got it! you would have it!’ roared the Celt.

‘Excuse yourself to the company for a misdirected effort,’ Redworth said; and he observed generally:  ’No Irish gentleman strikes a blow in good company.’

’But that’s true as Writ!  And I offer excuses—­if you’ll come along with me and a couple of friends.  The thing has been done before by torchlight—­and neatly.’

‘Come along, and come alone,’ said Redworth.

A way was cleared for them.  Sir Lukin hurried up to Redworth, who had no doubt of his ability to manage Mr. Sullivan Smith.

He managed that fine-hearted but purely sensational fellow so well that Lady Dunstane and Diana, after hearing in some anxiety of the hubbub below, beheld them entering the long saloon amicably, with the nods and looks of gentlemen quietly accordant.

A little later, Lady Dunstane questioned Redworth, and he smoothed her apprehensions, delivering himself, much to her comfort, thus:  ’In no case would any lady’s name have been raised.  The whole affair was nonsensical.  He’s a capital fellow of a kind, capable of behaving like a man of the world and a gentleman.  Only he has, or thinks he has, like lots of his countrymen, a raw wound—­something that itches to be grazed.  Champagne on that! . . .  Irishmen, as far as I have seen of them, are, like horses, bundles of nerves; and you must manage them, as you do with all nervous creatures, with firmness, but good temper.  You must never get into a fury of the nerves yourself with them.  Spur and whip they don’t want; they’ll be off with you in a jiffy if you try it.

They want the bridle-rein.  That seems to me the secret of Irish character.  We English are not bad horsemen.  It’s a wonder we blunder so in our management of such a people.’

‘I wish you were in a position to put your method to the proof,’ said she.

He shrugged.  ‘There’s little chance of it !’