_Which has to do with Blue Blood and a Jade-handled Cane_
The duel got upon the town.
Rupert Greppel, strutting with hidalgic air, was concerned in bringing
about several affairs. No one was hurt. There was much braying of asses.
The Lord Montagu Askew, dainty, foppish, in the mode, and the
Honourable Rupert Greppel, hidalgic, head in air, stood before a shop
window in the Rue de la Paix and gazed at their splendid reflections;
whilst past them moved on the pavement or whirled by in barouches
the great world of Paris--_hig-lif_ sunning its butterfly wings,
honey-questing, sipping at any dew that the gods left lying abroad.
Montagu Askew held his jade-handled cane mincingly, and he glowed with
a gentleman-like glow, for his dove-coloured little book of poems
tinted all the bookstalls.
More than one woman of high rank this morning had stopped her carriage
to congratulate him on the exquisite lyric wherein the vast firmament
at break of dawn was likened to the grey of a woman’s glove--indeed, it
became the vogue of the drawing-rooms--people sang it.
As a fact, Montagu Askew was acknowledged lord of chamber music.
Indeed, in his slender careful verse was no rude hint of the
full-blooded Rabelaisian love of life; it was innocent of the
suggestion of a large emotion; he played upon the accepted measures and
the well-authenticated rhyme; he startled with no surprises; he sounded
no new note--Montagu never forgot he was a gentleman. Not for him the
uncouthness to fling open loud-clanging gates to a new world. He was
pretty and serenely mannered before everything, disdainful of them that
skipped a foot to the hot jigging blood, or such as showed a strong
disdain; nor was he wanting in contempt for the natural emotions.
When he condescended to so low an act as to seek nature, he walked
through the well-groomed spaces of the world, well-trimmed parks at the
outside, where an elaborate etiquette had made the rules even for the
trees to grow in seemliness with a most gentlemanly existence. For him
were no disturbing peerings into human destiny--he raised no rough
alarms by strenuous aims and vigorous thinking. Pretty, dandified,
he--always. Sinning easily enough, but always like a gentleman. Never
a crudity. As a perfumed fan fluttered by jewelled slender fingers,
blowing cool fragrant airs that kiss the painted cheek of some
frail beauty, he uttered his lines--obscene often, but by the most
gentlemanly of innuendoes. The unmannerly thing was the only sin. The
display of a profound emotion was the depth of ill-breeding. So sang
he, tunefully always, guiltless of all rough accent of originality;
sang of peacocks and green carnations and blue roses, of butterflies
and pools and dragonflies and souls, of ivory and silver, and of
dawn and dusk and dew, and white shoulders sweet, beauties who moved
languidly with rustle of silk--so wafted he to you nothing more vibrant
than whisper of women and scent of perfumed chambers and flowers and
bowers and rose and amarynth and asphodel and daffodil, of moonlight
and music and kiss and gavotte and little tiny things--and always in
the most gentlemanly manner. He milked the unicorn. Always a would-be
suggestion of mysterious deep-hid symbolism that ended where it began,
and at most only the dark hint of well-bred tragedy.
He moved impatiently now, as impatiently as he might, complaining that
the shop-window into which he deigned to cast his reflection was tinted
with amethyst.
“Come, Greppel,” said he--“let us gaze at ourselves in another
window--this is an ageing colour.”
Then came the terrible tragedy of a fire at a charity bazaar; a most
patrician function with much upper clergy in it was smitten with sudden
and awful death. Montagu Askew was in the business. He was one of the
few that came out alive.
In the rush of the distraught ladies, princesses, duchesses, maids, to
the sole outlet of the seething hell, Montagu Askew got caught near the
door--frantic hands of terrified women clutched at him for help--he was
almost within reach of the free air--could see the sunlight a few paces
before him--a frightened girl clung to his arm in the awful crush, then
another--women’s skirts got under foot as they made for the door, and
they went down. He tried to shake himself clear of the two girls, he
was a little slender man.... The heat was hellish.... One of the girls
tripped on her skirt and fell, clinging to him. He beat her down with
the jade-handled cane--fought his way blindly through the rush of women
for the door--stood at last out in the sunlight.
Some coachmen were dashing into the fiery furnace, lifting up and
bringing out fainting women, whose muslin skirts were in flames.
But Monty Askew was frightened.
He smoothed his ruffled dress and went home.
Montagu Askew, entering a café with Rupert Greppel one evening, saluted
Noll Baddlesmere, where he stood amongst a group of students; and a
silence fell upon the place.
Noll nodded:
“That’s a handsome cane, Askew,” said he--“though they tell me the
women have a poor opinion of it.”
Askew’s little gloved hands trembled, and he turned white with
anger--as pale as Montagu Askew allowed himself to turn:
“It has belonged to my forefathers for seven generations,” he
said--“and every man of them backed his acts with his sword.”
Noll laughed; shrugged his shoulders:
“If your acts are hereditary, it is an excuse for you,” he said.
The following morning, Rupert Greppel and a French cousin called upon
Noll; and Rupert stiffly asked if he could refer him to two friends.
“No,” said Noll--Doome was with him--“no--I do not associate with men
who associate with Lord Montagu Askew.”
Rupert Greppel paused, dumbfounded:
“I do not think you understand,” he said. “Lord Montagu Askew
challenges you to fight him.”
“Tell Lord Montagu Askew from me,” said Noll, “that I only brawl with
men. Good-morning.”
The whisperings at the clubs are said to have hit Lord Montagu Askew
harder than a pistol-bullet; but Lord Montagu, from lack of experience,
is not an authority on being hit with pistol-bullets. He never takes
part in ungentlemanly encounters where people are hit. Indeed, he
maintains a wondrous silence, except that he challenged Noll; and the
jade-handled cane has joined the ancestors.