Buck English remained so quiet under the intentionally offensive allusion to himself, that some of the company began to think him deficient in courage. The Irish way of answering an insult, in those days, was to throw a glass full of wine in the offender's face, and follow that up by flinging the decanter at his head. After a pause, Frank Penrose, whom nobody could restrain, repeated the insult in other and harsher words. This broke up the party. As they were leaving the table, Buck English leant across, and said, very quietly, "Mr. Penrose, for the lady's sake, I would not mix up her name with a midnight brawl in a tavern, but you are aware that your words must be withdrawn or atoned for?"
"Take them as you please," said Penrose. "I stand by them."
"Then," answered the other, "I name Captain Cooper as my friend. Whom shall he meet on your part, and where?"
Pausing for a minute, during which he considered his course of action, Penrose said that in two days he expected a friend whose services he could command on such a business, and hoped the delay would not be inconvenient. His antagonist intimated his assent by a distant bow, and thus, in far less time than I have been writing about it, was appointed a meeting for life or death. The outward show of civility was maintained during the short time that they remained in the room, though feelings of deadliest enmity rankled beneath that smooth surface.
As they were retiring, Penrose and English again were together, and the latter took advantage of this contiguity to ask at what time his friend should call upon Mr. Penrose's second?
"At ten on Thursday morning, at Daly's club-house."
"Very well, and for whom shall he inquire?"
"Let him ask for Mr. D'Arcy Mahon, the barrister."
At that name, English shrunk or swerved as from a blow.
"Yes," said Penrose. "Have you any objection to the gentleman?"
That evening, on returning home, Mary Penrose applied herself, in the solitude of her chamber--the young heart's confessional--to serious thought upon that beleaguered and endangered Sebastopol, the state of her affections. It was evident that her cousin was piqued at the idea of her having a preference for English, and that his arrival was likely to bring the affair to an issue. Mary paused for some time in doubt as to the course she should pursue. She had a regard for her cousin Frank; but she confessed to herself, with conscious blush and sigh, that she had other and more cherished feelings for English. It is proverbial how a woman's deliberations, in an affair of the heart, invariably end; and so, having made up her mind in favour of Buck English, by far the most delightful companion--although not quite the handsomest--fate had thrown in her way, she retired to rest.