“I hope so,” I said shortly.

Comyn looked at me sharply.

“Would you fight him?” he asked.

“If he gave me the chance.”

His Lordship whistled.  “Egad, then,” said he, “I shall want to be there to see.  In spite of his pudding-bag shape he handles the sword as well as any man in England.  I have crossed with him at Angelo’s.  And he has a devilish tricky record, Richard.”

I said nothing to that.

“Hope you do—­kill him,” Comyn continued.  “He deserves it richly.  But that will be a cursed unpleasant way of settling the business, —­unpleasant for you, unpleasant for her, and cursed unpleasant for him, too, I suppose.  Can’t you think of any other way of getting her?  Ask Charles to give you a plan of campaign.  You haven’t any sense, and neither have I.”

“Hang you, Jack, I have no hopes of getting her,” I replied, for I was out of humour with myself that day.  “In spite of what you say, I know she doesn’t care a brass farthing to marry me.  So let’s drop that.”

Comyn made a comic gesture of deprecation.  I went on:  “But I am going to stay here and find out the truth, though it may be a foolish undertaking.  And if he is intimidating Mr. Manners—­”

“You may count on me, and on Charles,” said my Lord, generously; “and there are some others I know of.  Gad!  You made a dozen of friends and admirers by what you said last night, Richard.  And his Grace has a few enemies.  You will not lack support.”

We dined very comfortably at the Cocoa Tree, where Comyn had made an appointment for me with two as diverting gentlemen as had ever been my lot to meet.  My Lord Carlisle was the poet and scholar of the little clique which had been to Eton with Charles Fox, any member of which (so ’twas said) would have died for him.  His Lordship, be it remarked in passing, was as lively a poet and scholar as can well be imagined.  He had been recently sobered, so Comyn confided; which I afterwards discovered meant married.  Charles Fox’s word for the same was fallen.  And I remembered that Jack had told me it was to visit Lady Carlisle at Castle Howard that Dorothy was going when she heard of my disappearance.  Comyn’s other guest was Mr. Topham Beauclerk, the macaroni friend of Dr. Johnson.  He, too, had been recently married, but appeared no more sobered than his Lordship.  Mr. Beauclerk’s wife, by the way, was the beautiful Lady Diana Spencer, who had been divorced from Lord Bolingbroke, the Bully I had met the night before.  These gentlemen seemed both well acquainted with Miss Manners, and vowed that none but American beauties would ever be the fashion in London more.  Then we all drove to Lady Tankerville’s drum-major near Chesterfield House.

“You will be wanting a word with her when she comes in,” said Comyn, slyly divining.  Poor fellow!  I fear that I scarcely appreciated his feelings as to Dorothy, or the noble unselfishness of his friendship for me.