"
"But if you were thrashed yourself?" Tremayne asked him, and the
light in his grey eyes almost hinted at a dark desire to be himself
the executioner.
Samoval's dark, handsome eyes considered the captain steadily. "To
be thrashed myself?" he questioned. "My dear Captain, the idea of
having hands laid upon me, soiling me, brutalising me, is so
nauseating, so repugnant, that I assure you I should not hesitate to
shoot the man who did it just as I should shoot any other wild beast
that attacked me. Indeed the two instances are exactly parallel,
and my country's courts would uphold in such a case the justice of
my conduct."
"Then you may thank God," said O'Moy, "that you are not under
British jurisdiction."
"I do," snapped Samoval, to make an instant recovery: "at least so
far as the matter is concerned." And he elaborated: "I assure you,
sirs, it will be an evil day for the nobility of any country when
its Government enacts against the satisfaction that one gentleman
has the right to demand from another who offends him."
"Isn't the conversation rather too bloodthirsty for a luncheon-table?"
wondered Lady O'Moy. And tactlessly she added, thinking with
flattery to mollify Samoval and cool his obvious heat: "You are
yourself such a famous swordsman, Count.
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