‘Bovine?’ asked Grant. ‘What’s bovine?’

‘I thought you were a college man,’ said Collis, with overacted tiredness.

‘I am, sir, and you’d better believe it. But what’s bovine?’

He was talking so loudly now that people all around the room were turning their heads to see what was going on, and even the string quartet began to falter. His red-flushed cheeks had turned crimson, and there were clear droplets of sweat on his forehead. He didn’t notice what an exhibition he was making of himself. He was concentrating too hard on doing what his father had told him to do, and that was to chase away hounds like Collis Edmonds.

Collis straightened his cuffs. ‘Bovine,’ he said, crisply, ‘comes from a Latin word, bos, meaning ox. Roughly interpreted, it means that you’re behaving as if you were solid dried beef from ear to ear.’

Behind Grant Melford’s back, unseen by him, his father, Laurence, appeared in the veranda doorway, accompanied by John Frémont. There was an embarrassed hush over the whole reception room, except for the thready strains of a popular song, and everybody’s eyes went back from Collis, to Sarah, to Grant, to Laurence, and then back again. In the back room, a woman obliviously laughed a high scream of amusement.

Grant wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘You’ll take that back, sir,’ he said shakily. ‘You’ll damn well take that back.’

Sarah stepped away. Collis glanced at her, but she gave him an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Even though Grant was her brother, this was man’s business. The atmosphere was bristling with masculine anger and masculine pride.

‘I’ll do no such thing,’ Collis said. ‘It’s absurd. You can’t ask a man to take back an honest remark about an observable truth.’

Grant’s voice was breaking with tension. He sounded as if he had a mouthful of smashed glass. ‘Then, sir,’ he said, ‘you’ll give me satisfaction.’

Collis stared at him, and then gave a pfff of hilarity. ‘Satisfaction? How? By pouring gravy over your head and serving you up with beans?’

‘I demand it!’ roared Grant.

Collis tugged off his white evening gloves little by little, and then rolled them up. ‘I don’t think you know what you’re asking,’ he said in a very serious tone.

‘I’m asking for an apology,’ Grant blustered. ‘Or, if I don’t get that, satisfaction.’

There was silence. Laurence Melford, soft and deep, said, ‘Grant.’

‘This is my argument, Father,’ he said loudly. ‘I’m my own man now, and I’d appreciate it if you left it to me.’

‘Grant,’ said Laurence, ‘I’m thinking of your safety as well as your pride. This man provokes people like you by nature. He even provokes me. But if we play the game by his rules, we’ll only wind up defeated, and hurt.’

‘He called me an ox,’ said Grant.