Edward cast a puzzled eye around the crowded parlor. "No," he said. "No."
"I mean," Miss Davenant went on, "that my niece has left this neighborhood and will not return while you are here; so you are wasting your time and trouble."
"You will gain nothing by this attitude," said Miss Davenant. "If you will consent to leave Jevington to-night I will give you twenty pounds."
"Yes, twenty pounds, on condition that you promise not to molest this defenseless girl."
"Put up your money, madam," said Edward Basingstoke, with a noble gesture copied from the best theatrical models, "and dry your eyes. Never shall it be said that Edward Basingstoke was deaf to the voice of a lady in distress. Lay your commands on me, and be assured that, for me, to hear is to obey."
"You are very impertinent, young man," Miss Davenant told him, "and you won't do yourself any good by talking like a book. Clear out of this to-night, and I'll give you twenty pounds. Stay, and take the consequences."
"Well, stay if you like. You won't see her. She won't return to Jevington till you're gone. So I tell you you'd better accept my offer and go."
"Accept your offer and go," repeated Edward.
"Twenty pounds," said the lady, persuasively.
"Tempt me not!" said Edward. "To a man in my position. . . ."
"Nay," said Edward, "there are chords even in a piano-tuner's breast--chords which, too roughly touched, will turn and rend the smiter."
"Good gracious!" said Miss Davenant, "I believe the man's insane."
"Withdraw that harsh expression," he pleaded. And then, without warning, the situation ceased to amuse him. Here he was, swimming in the deep, smooth waters of diplomacy, and suddenly diplomacy seemed a sticky medium. He would have liked Miss Davenant to be a man--a man in green-silk Georgian coat and buckled shoes; himself also gloriously Georgian, in murray-colored cut velvet, with Mechlin at wrists and throat. Then they could have betaken themselves to the bowling-green and fought it out with ringing rapiers, by the light of the lantern held in the landlord's trembling fingers. Or at dawn, in the meadow the red wall bounded, there could have been measured pacings--a dropped handkerchief, two white puffs drifting away on the chill, sweet air, and Edward Basingstoke could have handed his smoking pistol to his second and mounted his horse--Black Belial--and so away to his lady, leaving his adversary wounded slightly ("winged," of course, was the word). Thus honor would have been satisfied, and Edward well in the lime-light. But in this little box of an overfurnished room, by the light of an ill-trimmed paraffin-lamp, to rag an anxious aunt. . . . He withdrew himself slowly from diplomacy--tried to find an inch or two of dry truth to stand on.