Laurence Melford came down the steps from the veranda and crossed the reception-room floor. He didn’t look at Collis once. Only at his son, who was now faced with the most dangerous decision of his twenty-year-old life.

‘Of course he called you an ox,’ Laurence Melford said warmly. ‘He’s good at choosing words that stir people up the most. He’ll probably be great, and rich, and successful, although I hate to admit it. But he’ll only get that way because he can always find the words that shock people, and irritate people, and startle them out of their complacency. But why don’t you be man enough to recognise what he’s doing to you, and that you’d earn yourself far more respect if you refused to be goaded into behaving the way he wants you to?’

‘Father,’ said Grant, ‘I’m asking for your support.’

‘You know you always have it,’ answered Laurence Melford, laying his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘But not when you’re risking your life for no sensible reason. Ignore this man. You’re worth a hundred of him.’

Grant Melford wiped his forehead again. Staring at Collis, he said, ‘What’s it to be? You can choose your weapons, and the time, too.’

‘Grant!’ snapped his father.

Grant tugged his father’s hand off his shoulder like a disillusioned infantryman ripping off one of his own epaulettes.

‘I forbid it!’ Laurence Melford told him loudly. ‘I absolutely forbid it!’

‘You forbid me to defend my good name?’ shouted Grant.

‘Your good name? He called you an ox, and by God, you were an ox to let him rile you!’

‘Your father’s right, Grant,’ Collis said. ‘You shouldn’t have let it upset you.’

Laurence Melford gave him a quick, testy glance. ‘There’s only one thing I want to hear from you, sir, and that’s an apology.’

‘Ah. I was afraid you might say that,’ Collis said.

‘I suppose that means that you won’t?’

‘You called him an ox yourself, sir. I’m hardly likely to withdraw a remark that has such eminent endorsement.’

‘There’s no choice, you see, Father,’ Grant put in. ‘He’s intractable. He’s damned rude, and damned arrogant, and he needs to be whipped.’

‘I don’t care, Grant. I forbid you to duel.’

‘Father, I shall do what my honour obliges me to do.’

Laurence Melford looked around. The quadrille music had faltered away altogether now, and the assembled guests were whispering and staring in embarrassment and confusion.

‘Can we continue this discussion in some private place?’ he asked John Frémont. Frémont nodded, and looked at them all sadly. ‘This way, Laurence,’ he said, and led them out of the main reception room, along the panelled corridor, and into a small study. Not far behind them, Jessie Frémont was taking Sarah Melford and her mother upstairs, to her private parlour. Sarah was looking strained and frightened.

Behind them, as they left, the gossip started up like a rising gust of wind through a field of dry wheat.