Nothing happened. Collis peered across the grass towards Grant Melford, and saw that he was standing there with an expression of almost comical horror, his thick eyebrows raised and his mouth open in a perfectly round O. A puff of white smoke was escaping across the grassy landscape behind him. He must have touched the sensitive trigger of his Lafoucheux before he had taken aim, and his shot had gone wide.

A slight echo came back from across the lake. A flurry of birds had risen in the distance, and now they were settling again. Mr Snaith and Mr O’Rourke turned their heads of one accord and looked at Collis with almost as much theatrical dread as Grant Melford. Collis stood where he was, straight-backed, with the long-barrelled pistol clasped in both hands, aiming directly at Grant Melford’s head.

Collis, in that moment, had an insight into the meaning of real power. He didn’t have the slightest intention of killing Grant Melford now. That would have been brutal and pointless. But Grant Melford didn’t know that, and according to his own melodramatic code of conduct, Collis would have been quite justified in shooting him down at his leisure. He stood there, the poor boy, his arms down by his sides, his face caught in a spasm of honour. Collis made an elaborate show of taking a good long aim down the barrel of his pistol, and he could sense the terrible suspense, and the agony of each unfired moment.

What Grant Melford and his seconds didn’t understand was that if Collis killed him, Collis would have accepted Grant’s ridiculous premise that caustic remarks could be expunged only by shooting at people in fields; and, far worse, he would have thrown away the best opportunity he had yet had for coming to grips with the Melford family. An enraged Laurence Melford was one thing, but a Laurence Melford who would have to admit a grudging gratitude that his son’s life had been spared — that would be something else altogether.

Mr Snaith said, in a strained voice, ‘You may fire when ready, Mr Edmonds.’

Collis called back, ‘Thank you, Mr Snaith.’

He could see Dan McReady smoking and watching him with mild interest as he raised the Lafoucheux high over his head and fired it straight up into the sky. It kicked his wrist and let out a stunning bang.

Mr O’Rourke suddenly began to clap, but he stopped as soon as Grant Melford glared at him. Suffused with outrage now, and crimson instead of white, Grant came stalking across the grass towards Collis and stood there with his fists on his hips.

‘You didn’t have to do that, you know,’ he said loudly. ‘There’s no honour in shooting deliberately wide.’