Free Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini Page A

interference!" He laughed angrily. "I think you are right, Mistress Diana," he said, "and I
think that more than ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding."
    He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief she had made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very night he sought out Wilding.
    But Wilding was from home again. Under its placid surface the West Country was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained the insistent rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance
was shaken now by proof that the Government, itself, was stirring; for four companies of foot and a troop of horse had been that day ordered to Taunton by the Deputy-Lieutenant. Wilding was gone
with Trenchard to White Lackington in a vain hope that there he might find news to confirm his persisting unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged on Monmouth's part.
    So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.
    Returning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men. He flung his hat — a black castor trimmed with a black feather
— rudely among the dishes on the board.
    "I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding," said he, "to be so good as to tell me the colour of that hat."
    Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.
    "I could not," said Mr. Wilding, "deny an answer to a question set so courteously." He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face with the sweetest and most innocent of smiles. "You'll no
doubt disagree with me," said he, "but I love to meet a man halfway. Your hat, sir, is as white as virgin snow."
    Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled viciously. "You mistake, Mr. Wilding," said he. "My hat is black."
    Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute. He was in a trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded him opportunities to indulge it. "Why, true," said he,
"now that I come to look, I perceive that it is indeed black."
    And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted. Still he pursued the lesson he had taught himself.
    "You are mistaken again," said he, "that hat is green."
    "Indeed?" quoth Mr. Wilding, like one surprised, and he turned to Trenchard, who was enjoying himself. "What is your own opinion of it, Nick?"
    Thus appealed to, Trenchard's reply was prompt. "Why, since you ask me," said he, "my opinion is that it's a noisome thing not meet for a gentleman's table." And he took it up, and threw it
through the window.
    Sir Rowland was entirely put out of countenance. Here was a deliberate shifting of the quarrel he had come to pick, which left him all at sea. It was his duty to himself to take offence at Mr.
Trenchard's action. But that was not the business on which he had come. He became angry.
    "Blister me!" he cried. "Must I sweep the cloth from the table before you'll understand me?"
    "If you were to do anything so unmannerly I should have you flung out of the house," said Mr. Wilding, "and it would distress me so to treat a person of your station and quality. The hat shall
serve your purpose, although Mr. Trenchard's concern for my table has removed it. Our memories will supply its absence. What colour did you say it was?"
    "I said it was green," answered Blake, quite ready to keep to the point.
    "Nay, I am sure you were wrong," said Wilding with a grave air. "Although I admit that since it is your own hat, you should be the best judge of its colour, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that
it is black."
    "And if I were to say that it is white?" asked Blake, feeling mighty ridiculous.
    "Why, in that case you would be confirming my first impression of it," answered Wilding, and Trenchard let fly a burst of laughter at sight of the baronet's furious and bewildered countenance.
"And since we are agreed on that," continued Mr. Wilding, imperturbable, "I hope