Grey rose suddenly. This was too much. "I'll not endure it from this knave!" he cried, appealing to Monmouth.
Monmouth wearily waved him to a seat; but Grey disregarded the command.
"What have I said that should touch your lordship?" asked Wilding, and, smiling sardonically, he looked into Grey's eyes.
"It is not what you have said. It is what you have inferred."
"And to call me knave!" said Wilding in a mocking horror.
The repression of his anger lent him a rare bitterness, and an almost devilishly subtle manner of expressing wordlessly what was passing in his mind. There was not one present but gathered from his utterance of those five words that he did not hold Grey worthy the honour of being called to account for that offensive epithet. He made just an exclamatory protest, such as he might have made had a woman applied the term to him.
Grey turned from him slowly to Monmouth. "It might be well," said he, in his turn controlling himself at last, "to place Mr. Wilding under arrest."
Mr. Wilding's manner quickened on the instant from passive to active anger.
"Upon what charge, sir?" he demanded sharply. In truth it was the only thing wanting that, after all that he had undergone, he should be arrested. His eyes were upon the Duke's melancholy face, and his anger was such that in that moment he vowed that if Monmouth acted upon this suggestion of Grey's he should not have so much as the consolation of Sunderland's letter.
"You have been wanting in respect to us, sir," the Duke answered him. He seemed able to do little more than repeat himself. "You return from London empty-handed, your task unaccomplished, and instead of a becoming contrition, you hector it here before us in this manner." He shook his head. "We are not pleased with you, Mr. Wilding." "But, Your Grace," exclaimed Wilding, "is it my fault that your London agents had failed to organize the rising? That rising should have taken place, and it would have taken place had Your Majesty been more ably represented there."
"You were there, Mr. Wilding," said Grey with heavy sarcasm.
"Would it no' be better to leave Mr. Wilding's affair until afterwards?" suggested Ferguson at that moment. "It is already past eight, Your Majesty, and there be still some details of this attack to settle that your officers may prepare for it, whilst Mr. Newlington awaits Your Majesty to supper at nine."
"True," said Monmouth, ever ready to take a solution offered by another. "We will confer with you again later, Mr. Wilding."
Wilding bowed, accepting his dismissal. "Before I go, Your Majesty, there are certain things I would report..." he began.