I waited, straining my ears to hear the little stairway creak behind the door at my back, and cudgelling my brains to think what I should do. If she came down into the room, it was all over with my project and, most likely, with my life, too, unless I was prepared to shoot my opponent in cold blood and make a bolt for it. After a while, however, the sound ceased altogether, to my indescribable relief. The Count was the first to break the silence.
"Very well, Mr. Buckler," said he; "send your friends to me in the morning. Let them come like men to the door and give me assurance that I may meet you without loss of self-respect, and you shall have your way."
"You force me to repeat," said I, "that the matter must be disposed of to-night."
"To-night!" he said, and stared at me incredulously. "Mr. Buckler, you must be mad."
"To-night," I repeated stubbornly. For, apart from all considerations of safety, I felt that such courage as I possessed was but the froth of my anger, and would soon vanish if it were left to stand. The Count began to pace the room between the writing-table and the window. I set my chair against the wall and leaned against the chimney, and I noted that at each turn in his walk he drew, as though unconsciously, nearer and nearer to the bell.
"Mr. Buckler," he said, "what you propose is quite out of the question. I can but attribute it to your youth. You take too little thought of my side of the case. To fight with one whom I have never so much as set eyes on before, who forces his way into my house in the dead of night--you must see for yourself that it fits not my dignity."
"You are too close to the bell, Count Lukstein, and you raise your voice," I broke in sharply. "That fits not my safety."
He stood still in the middle of the room and raised a clenched fist to his shoulder, glaring at me. In a moment, however, he resumed his former manner.
"Besides," he went on, "there is a particular reason why I would have no disturbance here tonight. You got some inkling of it a moment ago." He nodded to the ceiling.
I blush with shame now when I remember what I answered him. I took a leaf from his book, as the saying is, and could conceive no worthy strain in him.
"The good lady," I said, "whom you honour with your attentions now must wait until the affairs of her predecessor are arranged."