Діамант Раджі=The Rajah’s Diamond

Pendragon, that because I have had the misfortune to marry your sister, I shall suffer myself to be dogged and thwarted by a discredited and bankrupt libertine like you? My acquaintance with Lady Vandeleur, sir, has taken away all my appetite for the other members of her family.”

“And do you fancy, General Vandeleur,” retorted Charlie, “that because my sister has had the misfortune to marry you, she there and then forfeited her rights and privileges as a lady? I own, sir, that by that action she did as much as anybody could to derogate from her position; but to me she is still a Pendragon.

I make it my business to protect her from ungentlemanly outrage, and if you were ten times her husband I would not permit her liberty to be restrained, nor her private messengers to be violently arrested.”

“How is that, Mr. Hartley?” interrogated the General. “Mr. Pendragon is of my opinion, it appears. He too suspects that Lady Vandeleur has something to do with your friend’s silk hat.”

Charlie saw that he had committed an unpardonable blunder, which he hastened to repair.

“How, sir?” he cried; “I suspect, do you say? I suspect nothing. Only where I find strength abused and a man brutalising his inferiors, I take the liberty to interfere.”

As he said these words he made a sign to Harry, which the latter was too dull or too much troubled to understand.

“In what way am I to construe your attitude, sir?” demanded Vandeleur.

“Why, sir, as you please,” returned Pendragon.

The General once more raised his cane, and made a cut for Charlie’s head; but the latter, lame foot and all, evaded the blow with his umbrella, ran in, and immediately closed with his formidable adversary.

“Run, Harry, run!” he cried; “run, you dolt!”

Harry stood petrified for a moment, watching the two men sway together in this fierce embrace; then he turned and took to his heels. When he cast a glance over his shoulder he saw the General prostrate under Charlie’s knee, but still making desperate efforts to reverse the situation; and the Gardens seemed to have filled with people, who were running from all directions towards the scene of fight.

This spectacle lent the secretary wings; and he did not relax his pace until he had gained the Bayswater road, and plunged at random into an unfrequented by-street.

To see two gentlemen of his acquaintance thus brutally mauling each other was deeply shocking to Harry.