If there had been a cat handy I’d have kicked it. What had promised to be a splendid scandal looked like fizzling out like the dampest of squibs, and this damned baronet would walk away without a blot on his escutcheon … or so it seemed to me just then. From the first, you see, I’d feared that there might be a simple explanation, and here was a plausible one, rot it. It was all most damnably deflating—and worse because I’d guided him to his bloody loophole of escape.
"Don’t you see?" cries he again, impatiently. "Heavens, it’s as plain as daylight now! You must see that! It’s obvious to anyone above a half-wit—even a muttonhead like Williams can’t fail to see it! Am I right?"
I put on my judicial face and said that he probably was. "Well, thank God for that!" cries he sarcastically, and if anything had been needed to convince me he was telling the truth, it was his sneering tone. Not a hint of doubt that his explanation mightn’t wash, no palpitating hope of its acceptance—only cold fury that he, the soul of honour, had been disgracefully traduced, and that his peers had believed it. Two minutes since he’d been in an agony of despair, but now Sir William Gordon-Cumming, Bart, was back in the saddle, bursting with injured self-righteousness and the arrogant certainty of his kind. And, you’ll note, not a whisper of gratitude to your correspondent.
"The Prince must be told at once! He’s a man of sense—unlike those clowns Coventry and Williams. I don’t doubt they persuaded him against his will, but when I put it to him he’ll see the right of it." He was at his dressing-table, flourishing his silver-backed brushes, improving his parting, with a dab or two at the ends of his pathetic Guardee moustache, and shooting his cuffs, while I marvelled at the human capacity for self-delusion. He was full of exultant confidence now, and it never crossed his shallow mind that others might be less ready to take his view of the matter. I’ve said his explanation was plausible, but it wasn’t near as cast-iron as he thought. Much would depend on how it was presented … and how ready they were to believe it.
"It may be a lesson to them against jumping to conclusions! And on such flimsy evidence—the babbling of those whippersnappers! And my character, my good name, my record of honourable service, were to count for nothing against their damned gossip, the confounded little spies!" He was striding for the door, in full raging fettle, when he suddenly wheeled about. "No, by heavens, I’ll not do it!" He snapped his fingers, pointing at me. "Why should I?"
"Why shouldn’t you do what?" was all I could say, for his anger had dropped from him like a shed cloak, and he was smiling grimly as he came slowly back to me.
"Why should I humble myself with explanations? I’m the injured party, am I not? I’m the one who has suffered this … this intolerable affront! I have been insulted in the grossest fashion on the word of a pack of mannerless brats, and two elderly fools who, I have no doubt, persuaded His Royal Highness against his better judgment and honourable instincts." Drunk with vindictive justification he might be, he wasn’t ass enough to impugn Saintly Bertie. He gave a barking laugh. "Lord, Flashman, in our fathers' day I’d have been justified in blowing their imbecile heads off on Calais sands! Am I to crawl to them and say `Please, sir, I can prove your informants—ha, informers, I should say!—have been utterly in the wrong, and will you kindly tell ’em so, and condescend to forgive me for having conducted myself like a man of honour?' Is that what I’m supposed to do?"
Talk about women scorned; their fury ain’t in it with a Scotch baronet’s wounded self-esteem. Had I ever, I wondered, encountered such an immortally conceited ass with a truer touch for self-destruction? George Custer came to mind. Aye, put him and Gordon-Cumming on the edge of a precipice and I’d not care to bet which would tumble first into the void, bellowing his grievance.
"What," says I, keeping my countenance with proper gravity, "do you propose to do?"
"Not a damned thing! You—" stabbing me on the chest "—since you’ve thrust your spoon into the dixie, can do it for me! You can be my messenger, Flashman, and have the satisfaction of showing them what asses they’ve made of themselves! You’ve got the gift o' the gab, don’t we know it?" says he, with a curl of his voice if not of his lip. "You can explain about the coup de trois and the rest of it—because I’m damned if I will! It’s not for me to make a plea to them—let ’em come to me! I’ll accept their apology—Coventry and Williams, I mean, and those three guttersnipes! Not the ladies, of course—and certainly not His Royal Highness, who has been most disgracefully imposed on, I’m sure of that. Yes," says he, head up and shoulders square, with exultation in his eye, "that’s the way to do it! So off you go, old fellow, and don’t spare ’em!" Seeing me stand thoughtful, he frowned impatiently. "Well—will you?"
