Outside, Apollo gave vent to a long and ear-splitting howl. Waiting until it ceased, “Yes, if you please,” said Gwendolyn sunnily. “To the right.”
Dumbfounded, he gawked at her guileless smile. “Now—’pon my soul, madam! You must have some presumablysensiblereason for calling?”
“Oh, dear. Have I been rude? I suppose I should have said I am not at all disappointed, and that you are just as handsome as I was told.” She blinked as his frown diminished. “Only I am not very good at making insincere remarks,” she added. “Any more than are you.”
He looked at her as from a great height and murmured, “Indeed? Perhaps you will be so good as to explain my offense.”
“There is none. The fact that you refrain from uttering foolish platitudes is not offensive to me.” Seldom at a loss for words, this left him looking so nonplussed that she appended kindly, “Usually, when people notice I am lame, they say they are sorry. You did not.”
Apollo was howling again. Irritated on two counts, Falcon snapped, “Why should I be sorry? I do not know you, and you do not seem thrown into the dismals by your affliction.”
“Very honest. And, however well meant, spurious sympathy is so provoking and usually spoken more to impress one with the good nature of the speaker, than with a genuine interest and concern. As for my feelings—I should like not to be lame, of course. But I always have been so, and am accustomed to it. After all, ’twould be very much worse an I was suffering, as so many poor souls do. Only…”—briefly, her eyes were very sad—“I should like to have had children.” Looking up, smiling, she said, “Ah, I am boring you.”
Straightening the ruffles at his wrist he answered crushingly, “I expect you will eventually tell me why you came.”
Uncrushed, she said, “’Tis simply that I would be very grateful if you would please not fight my brother with pistols. Oh, I apprehend that ladies are not supposed to know about such things as duels. But I do know. And I do not want Gideon to be killed. He has only just come home.”
“Jupiter, madam! This is most improper! And at all events,” Falcon raised his voice so as to be heard over the grieving hound, “Rossiter had choice of weapons. Not me.”
“That should be ‘not I,’” she corrected kindly. “But if Gideon chose pistols, he is very silly, for they are horrid, deadly things, whereas—”
Bored, he stood. “Be at ease, ma’am. Your brother chose swords.” His eyes glinted maliciously. “Which will avail him nothing.”
“Oh dear! Are you very good?”
He bowed. “Now, if that is all—”
“Is not all! I don’t want him killed with a sword, either!”
“Would you suggest we fight with feather dusters, Miss Rossiter?”
“I would suggest you do not fight with anything! ’Tis a very silly custom to have prevailed into modern times, and typifies the male predilection for dramatic displays that solve nothing! You never see ladies behaving in such nonsensical fashion.”
She was really incensed. Amused in spite of himself, he argued, “In point of fact, womenhavegone out! Only—”
“Oh, fiddle! You split hairs, Mr. Falcon. And ’tis most difficult for me to talk to you with your dog howling like that. Can you not keep him quiet?”
“Alas, I am a perpetual disappointment. Apollo wishes to come in. And since you are leaving—”
“Then let him in,” she said, opening her eyes at him.
He hesitated. He really shouldn’t, but this ill-mannered, opinionated chit deserved a lesson, and it would certainly get rid of her. “As you wish,” he murmured suavely, and went over to open the door.
A black tornado raced into the room, pounced around his master twice causing the floors to shake, then saw Gwendolyn. The hair stood up across his shoulders. Growling menacingly, he crouched.
“Behave,” said Gwendolyn sternly.
Apollo did not intend to bite her badly. But she must be made to leave his house. With all his teeth in full view, he started for her.
Falcon, who had watched with covert amusement, sprang, but missed, and Apollo lunged at the slender girl.
Gwendolyn had kept her cane as inconspicuous as possible, but now she raised it and said one magical word. “Fetch!”
Apollo’s ears went up and his hair went down. Tail wagging, he panted with eager expectation.
“Hey!” cried Falcon.
Gwendolyn was already tossing the cane. Apollo plunged after it, sending his advancing master reeling. A table crashed into the chair Falcon clutched at, and he sat on the floor hard and without elegance amid the wreckage of the Chinese vase that had gone down with the table.
