Her ladyship protested the contrary, professing a deep interest in military matters, and inviting his lordship to continue. Lord Wellington, however, ignoring the invitation, turned the conversation upon life in Lisbon, inquiring hopefully whether they found the place afforded them adequate entertainment.
"Indeed yes," Lady O'Moy assured him. "We are very gay at times. There are private theatricals and dances, occasionally an official ball, and we are promised picnics and water-parties now that the summer is here."
"And in the autumn, ma'am, we may find you a little hunting," his lordship promised them. "Plenty of foxes; a rough country, though; but what's that to an Irishwoman?" He caught the quickening of Miss Armytage's eye. "The prospect interests you, I see."
Miss Armytage admitted it, and thus they made conversation for a while, what time the great soldier sipped his wine and water to wash the dust of his morning ride from his throat. When at last he set down an empty glass Sir Terence took this as the intimation of his readiness to deal with official matters, and, rising, he announced himself entirely at his lordship's service.
Lord Wellington claimed his attention for a full hour with the details of several matters that are not immediately concerned with this narrative. Having done, he rose at last from Sir Terence's desk, at which he had been sitting, and took up his riding-crop and cocked hat from the chair where he had placed them.
"And now," he said, "I think I will ride into Lisbon and endeavour to come to an understanding with Count Redondo and Don Miguel Forjas."
Sir Terence advanced to open the door. But Wellington checked him with a sudden sharp inquiry.
"You published my order against duelling, did you not?"
"Immediately upon receiving it, sir."
"Ha! It doesn't seem to have taken long for the order to be infringed, then." His manner was severe, his eyes stern. Sir Terence was conscious of a quickening of his pulses. Nevertheless his answer was calmly regretfuclass="underline"
"I am afraid not."
The great man nodded. "Disgraceful! I heard of it from Fletcher this morning. Captain What's-his-name had just reported himself under arrest, I understand, and Fletcher had received a note from you giving the grounds for this. The deplorable part of these things is that they always happen in the most troublesome manner conceivable. In Berkeley's case the victim was a nephew of the Patriarch's. Samoval, now, was a person of even greater consequence, a close friend of several members of the Council. His death will be deeply resented, and may set up fresh difficulties. It is monstrous vexatious." And abruptly he asked "What did they quarrel about?"
O'Moy trembled, and his glance avoided the other's gimlet eye. "The only quarrel that I am aware of between them," he said, "was concerned with this very enactment of your lordship's. Samoval proclaimed it infamous, and Tremayne resented the term. Hot words passed between them, but the altercation was allowed to go no further at the time by myself and others who were present."
His lordship had raised his brows. "By gad, sir," he ejaculated, "there almost appears to be some justification for the captain. He was one of your military secretaries, was he not?"
"He was."
"Ha! Pity! Pity!" His lordship was thoughtful for a moment. Then he dismissed the matter. "But then orders are orders, and soldiers must learn to obey implicitly. British soldiers of all degrees seem to find the lesson difficult. We must inculcate it more sternly, that is all."
O'Moy's honest soul was in torturing revolt against the falsehoods he had implied—and to this man of all men, to this man whom he reverenced above all others, who stood to him for the very fount of military honour and lofty principle! He was in such a mood that one more question on the subject from Wellington and the whole ghastly truth must have come pouring from his lips. But no other question came. Instead his lordship turned on the threshold and held out his hand.
"Not a step farther, O'Moy. I've left you a mass of work, and you are short of a secretary. So don't waste any of your time on courtesies. I shall hope still to find the ladies in the garden so that I may take my leave without inconveniencing them."
And he was gone, stepping briskly with clicking spurs, leaving O'Moy hunched now in his chair, his body the very expression of the dejection that filled his soul.
In the garden his lordship came upon Miss Armytage alone, still seated by the table under the trellis, from which the cloth had by now been removed. She rose at his approach and in spite of gesture to her to remain seated.
"I was seeking Lady O'Moy," said he, "to take my leave of her. I may not have the pleasure of coming to Monsanto again."
"She is on the terrace, I think," said Miss Armytage. "I will find her for your lordship."
"Let us find her together," he said amiably, and so turned and went with her towards the archway. "You said your name is Armytage, I think?" he commented.
"Sir Terence said so."
His eyes twinkled. "You possess an exceptional virtue," said he. "To be truthful is common; to be accurate rare. Well, then, Sir Terence said so. Once I had a great friend of the name of Armytage. I have lost sight of him these many years. We were at school together in Brussels."
"At Monsieur Goubert's," she surprised him by saying. "That would be John Armytage, my uncle."
"God bless my soul, ma'am!" he ejaculated. "But I gathered you were Irish, and Jack Armytage came from Yorkshire."
"My mother is Irish, and we live in Ireland now. I was born there. But father, none the less, was John Armytage's brother."
He looked at her with increased interest, marking the straight, supple lines of her, and the handsome, high-bred face. His lordship, remember, never lacked an appreciative eye for a fine woman. "So you're Jack Armytage's niece. Give me news of him, my dear."
She did so. Jack Armytage was well and prospering, had made a rich marriage and retired from the Blues many years ago to live at Northampton. He listened with interest, and thus out of his boyhood friendship for her uncle, which of late years he had had no opportunity to express, sprang there and then a kindness for the niece. Her own personal charms may have contributed to it, for the great soldier was intensely responsive to the appeal of beauty.
They reached the terrace. Lady O'Moy was nowhere in sight. But Lord Wellington was too much engrossed in his discovery to be troubled.
"My dear," he said, "if I can serve you at any time, both for Jack's sake and your own, I hope that you will let me know of it."
She looked at him a moment, and he saw her colour come and go, arguing a sudden agitation.
"You tempt me, sir," she said, with a wistful smile.
"Then yield to the temptation, child," he urged her kindly, those keen, penetrating eyes of his perceiving trouble here.
"It isn't for myself," she responded. "Yet there is something I would ask you if I dare—something I had intended to ask you in any case if I could find the opportunity. To be frank, that is why I was waiting there in the garden just now. It was to waylay you. I hoped for a word with you."