For he fought a duel (it was considered highly well bred of him to waive all question of his rank) with a nobleman, well known in the society of the day, not only for his own merits, but as the husband of a very beautiful wife. In that duel Prince Rudolf received a severe wound, and, recovering therefrom, was adroitly smuggled off by the Ruritanian ambassador, who had found him a pretty handful. The nobleman was not wounded in the duel; but the morning being raw and damp on the occasion of the meeting, he contracted a severe chill, and, failing to throw it off, he died some six months after the departure of Prince Rudolf, without having found leisure to adjust his relations with his wife – who, after another two months, bore an heir to the title and estates of the family of Burlesdon.
This lady was the Countess Amelia (этой дамой была графиня Амелия), whose picture my sister-in-law wished to remove from the drawing-room in Park Lane (чей портрет моя невестка хотела убрать из гостиной /дома/ на Парк-Лейн; picture – картина; портрет); and her husband was James, fifth Earl of Burlesdon and twenty-second Baron Rassendyll (а мужем ее был Джеймс, пятый граф Берлисдон и двадцать второй барон Рассендил), both in the peerage of England, and a Knight of the Garter (пэр Англии и Кавалер ордена Подвязки; both – оба, и тот и другой; peerage – сословие пэров, высшая знать; звание пэра; knight – рыцарь; кавалер одного из высших английских орденов). As for Rudolf, he went back to Ruritania (а что до Рудольфа, то он вернулся в Руританию), married a wife, and ascended the throne (женился: «женился /на/ жене» и взошел на трон), whereon his progeny in the direct line (на котором его потомки по прямой линии) have sat from then till this very hour (сидят с тех пор по сей день: «по это самое время»; hour – час; время, период) – with one short interval (с одним недолгим перерывом). And, finally, if you walk through the picture galleries at Burlesdon (и, наконец, если вы пройдете по картинной галерее в Берлисдоне), among the fifty portraits or so of the last century and a half (среди примерно пятидесяти портретов, /написанных/ за последние полтора века; or so – около того, приблизительно; half – половина