by Henry James
III
"He can't bear to do it, poor man!" Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked toher remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashedout to Bond Street.
"I dare say not!"--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity ofself-expression, made little of that. "But he goes too far, you see,and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore"--and he glanced at theclock--"I must go to Kitty."
"Kitty--with what Kitty wants," Lady Sandgate opined--"won't thank youfor _that!_"
"She never thanks me for anything"--and the fact of his resignationclearly added here to his bitterness. "So it's no great loss!"
"Won't you at any rate," his hostess asked, "wait for Bender?"
His lordship cast it to the winds. "What have I to do with him now?"
"Why surely if he'll accept your own price--!"
Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused athimself: "Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!" After which he wentfor his hat. "But there's one thing," he remembered as he came back withit: "where's my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?"
"If you mean Grace and really want her I'll send and find out."
"Not now"--he bethought himself. "But does she _see_ that chatterbox?"
"Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him."
He kept his eyes on her. "Then how far has it gone?"
Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. "Well, not even yet, I think,so far as they'd like."
"They'd 'like'--heaven save the mark!--to marry?"
"I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that," she asked,"would you then take?"
He was perfectly prompt. "The line that for Grace it's simply ignoble."
The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact."Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_"
He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. "It lets us sodown--from what we've always been and done; so down, down, down that I'mamazed you don't feel it!"
"Oh, I feel there's still plenty to keep you up!" she soothinglylaughed.
He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged,however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature."Well, my dear," he thus more blandly professed, "I shall need all theextra _agrement_ that your affection can supply."
If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing couldat the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. "Ah, myaffectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always inflood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you've ever seenfor yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not'great' as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the naturalsense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand mandoing and taking things."
He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, forthe strain he foresaw on these resolutions. "If you mean that I holdup my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how muchlonger possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in thename of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them,and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of herlicense and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I'm indanger of helplessly to swallow the dose?"
"Do you find Mr. Crimble," Lady Sandgate as if there might really besomething to say, "so utterly out of the question?"
"I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degreeoffensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one's poor deardecent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him wouldforbid _that_ kind of relation."
What kind of relation, if any, Hugh's deficiencies might still renderthinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice ofMr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assuredsound of "Mr. Breckenridge Bender." The guest in possession gave a cryof impatience, but Lady Sandgate said "Coming up?"
"If his lordship will see him."
"Oh, he's beyond his time," his lordship pronounced--"I can't see himnow!"
"Ah, but _mustn't_ you--and mayn't _I_ then?" She waited, however, forno response to signify to her servant "Let him come," and her companioncould but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wonderedat the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a littlethat she went on while Gotch did her bidding. "Does the kind of relationyou'd be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as yousay, more than the relation you've been having with Mr. Bender?"
Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. "Do you meandon't I hate 'em equally both?"
She cut his further reply short, however, by a "Hush!" of warning--Mr.Bender was there and his introducer had left them.
Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereuponlittle to ceremony. "I've but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr.Bender, and if you've been unavoidably detained, as you great bustlingpeople are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough foryour comfort to hear from me that I've just given order to close ourexhibition. From the present hour on, sir"--he put it with the firmnessrequired to settle the futility of an appeal.
Mr. Bender's large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough,in Mr. Bender's larger ease. "Why, do you really mean it, LordTheign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocentgratification to thousands?"
"Well," said his lordship curtly, "if thousands have seen it I've donewhat I wanted, and if they've been gratified I'm content--and invite_you_ to be."
Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. "In otherwords it's I who may remove the picture?"
"Well--if you'll take it on my estimate."
"But what, Lord Theign, all this time," Mr. Bender almost patheticallypleaded, "_is_ your estimate?"
The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, afterhe had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess'sconscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. "LadySandgate will tell you." The door closed behind him.
The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensivepresence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strangeproceedings. "He means that your own valuation is much too shockinglyhigh."
"But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he'll take?"The great collector's spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly notreached its limit of expansion. "Is he crazily waiting for the thing tobe proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?"
"No, he's waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished byPappendick's tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of."
Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender's countenance showedlike a barren tract under a black cloud. "I wrote to _report_, fair andsquare, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I'd take the picture just thesame, negative and all."
"Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn't."
"We know nothing about what it 'isn't,'" said Mr. Bender, "after allthat has happened--we've only learned a little better every day what itis."
"You mean," his companion asked, "the biggest bone of artisticcontention----?"
"Yes,"--he took it from her--"the biggest that has been thrown into thearena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_."
Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance;it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge."Well, if it's the biggest bone I won't touch it; I'll leave it to bemauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name aprice, dear Mr. Bender, I'll name one--and as you prefer big prices I'lltry to make it suit you. Only it won't be for the portrait of a personnobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about mygreat-grandmother."
"Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!"--and her visitor turned from her with thehunch of overcharged shoulders.
But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if sucha conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. "
You'vebeen delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won't reallypretend that you don't recognise that and in fact rather like it."
He faced about to her again as to a case of coolnessunparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in thequestion of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifferenceto bad debts or peculation like that of some huge hotel or otherbusiness involving a margin for waste. He could afford, he could workwaste too, clearly--and what was it, that term, you might have felt himask, but a mean measure, anyway? quite as the "artful," opposed to hislarger game, would be the hiding and pouncing of children at play. "DoI gather that those uncanny words of his were just meant to put meoff?" he inquired. And then as she but boldly and smilingly shrugged,repudiating responsibility, "Look here, Lady Sandgate, ain't youhonestly going to help me?" he pursued.
This engaged her sincerity without affecting her gaiety. "Mr. Bender,Mr. Bender, I'll help you if you'll help _me!_"
"You'll really get me something from him to go on with?"
"I'll get you something from him to go on with."
"That's all I ask--to get _that_. Then I can move the way I want. Butwithout it I'm held up."
"You shall have it," she replied, "if I in turn may look to _you_ for atrifle on account."
"Well," he dryly gloomed at her, "what do you call a trifle?"
"I mean"--she waited but an instant--"what you would feel as one."
"That won't do. You haven't the least idea, Lady Sandgate," he earnestlysaid, "_how_ I feel at these foolish times. I've never got used to themyet."
"Ah, don't you understand," she pressed, "that if I give you anadvantage I'm completely at your mercy?"
"Well, what mercy," he groaned, "do you deserve?"
She waited a little, brightly composed--then she indicated her innershrine, the whereabouts of her precious picture. "Go and look at heragain and you'll see."
His protest was large, but so, after a moment, was his compliance--hisheavy advance upon the other room, from just within the doorway of whichthe great Lawrence was serenely visible. Mr. Bender gave it his eyesonce more--though after the fashion verily of a man for whom it had nowno freshness of a glamour, no shade of a secret; then he came back tohis hostess. "Do you call giving me an advantage squeezing me by yoursweet modesty for less than I may possibly bear?"
"How can I say fairer," she returned, "than that, with my backing aboutthe other picture, which I've passed you my word for, thrown in, I'llresign myself to whatever you may be disposed--characteristically!--togive for this one."
"If it's a question of resignation," said Mr. Bender, "you mean ofcourse what I may be disposed--characteristically!--_not_ to give."
She played on him for an instant all her radiance. "Yes then, you dearsharp rich thing!"
"And you take in, I assume," he pursued, "that I'm just going to lean onyou, for what I want, with the full weight of a determined man."
"Well," she laughed, "I promise you I'll thoroughly obey the directionof your pressure."
"All right then!" And he stopped before her, in his unrest, monumentallypledged, yet still more massively immeasurable. "How'll you have it?"
She bristled as with all the possible beautiful choices; then she shedher selection as a heaving fruit-tree might have dropped some roundripeness. It was for her friend to pick up his plum and his privilege."Will you write a cheque?"
"Yes, if you want it right away." To which, however, he added, clappingvainly a breast-pocket: "But my cheque-book's down in my car."
"At the door?" She scarce required his assent to touch a bell. "I caneasily send for it." And she threw off while they waited: "It's so sweetyour 'flying round' with your cheque-book!"
He put it with promptitude another way. "It flies round pretty well with_Mr_----!"
"Mr. Bender's cheque-book--in his car," she went on to Gotch, who hadanswered her summons.
The owner of the interesting object further instructed him: "You'll findin the pocket a large red morocco case."
"Very good, sir," said Gotch--but with another word for his mistress."Lord John would like to know--"
"Lord John's there?" she interrupted.
Gotch turned to the open door. "Here he is, my lady."
She accommodated herself at once, under Mr. Bender's eye, to thecomplication involved in his lordship's presence. "It's he who wentround to Bond Street."
Mr. Bender stared, but saw the connection. "To stop the show?" And thenas the young man was already there: "You've stopped the show?"
"It's 'on' more than ever!" Lord John responded while Gotch retired: ahurried, flurried, breathless Lord John, strikingly different from thebackward messenger she had lately seen despatched. "But Theign shouldbe here!"--he addressed her excitedly. "I announce you a call from thePrince."
"The Prince?"--she gasped as for the burden of the honour. "He followsyou?"
Mr. Bender, with an eagerness and a candour there was no mistaking,recognised on behalf of his ampler action a world of associationaladvantage and auspicious possibility. "Is the Prince _after_ the thing?"
Lord John remained, in spite of this challenge, conscious of nothingbut his message. "He was there with Mackintosh--to see and admire thepicture; which he thinks, by the way, a Mantovano pure and simple!--anddid me the honour to remember me. When he heard me report to Mackintoshin his presence the sentiments expressed to me here by our noble friendand of which, embarrassed though I doubtless was," the young man pursuedto Lady Sandgate, "I gave as clear an account as I could, he was sodelighted with it that he declared they mustn't think then of taking thething off, but must on the contrary keep putting it forward for all it'sworth, and he would come round and congratulate and thank Theign andexplain him his reasons."
Their hostess cast about for a sign. "Why Theign is at Kitty's, worseluck! The Prince calls on him _here?_"
"He calls, you see, on _you_, my lady--at five-forty-five; andgraciously desired me so to put it you."
"He's very kind, but"--she took in her condition--"I'm not even_dressed!_"
"You'll have time"--the young man was a comfort--"while I rush toBerkeley Square. And pardon me, Bender--though it's so near--if I justbag your car."
"That's, that's it, take his car!"--Lady Sandgate almost swept him away.
"You may use my car all right," Mr. Bender contributed--"but what I wantto know is what the man's _after_."
"The man? what man?" his friend scarce paused to ask.
"The Prince then--if you allow he _is_ a man! Is he after my picture?"
Lord John vividly disclaimed authority. "If you'll wait, my dear fellow,you'll see."
"Oh why should he 'wait'?" burst from their cautious companion--onlyto be caught up, however, in the next breath, so swift her graciousrevolution. "Wait, wait indeed, Mr. Bender--I won't give you up forany Prince!" With which she appealed again to Lord John. "He wants to'congratulate'?"
"On Theign's decision, as I've told you--which I announced toMackintosh, by Theign's extraordinary order, under his Highness's nose,and which his Highness, by the same token, took up like a shot."
Her face, as she bethought herself, was convulsed as by some quickperception of what her informant must have done and what therefore thePrince's interest rested on; all, however, to the effect, given theiractual company, of her at once dodging and covering that issue. "Thedecision to remove the picture?"
Lord John also observed a discretion. "He wouldn't hear of such athing--says it must stay stock still. So there you are!"
This determined in Mr. Bender a not unnatural, in fact quite aclamorous, series of questions. "But _where_ are we, and what has thePrince to do with Lord Theign's decision when that's all _I'm_ here for?What in thunder _is_ Lord Theign's decision--what was his 'extraordinaryorder'?"
Lord John, too long detained and his hand now on the door, put off thissolicitor as he had already been put off. "Lady Sandgate, _you_ tellhim! I rush!"
Mr. Bender saw him vanish, but all to a greater b
ewilderment. "What theh---- then (I beg your pardon!) is he talking about, and what'sentiments' did he report round there that Lord Theign had beenexpressing?"
His hostess faced it not otherwise than if she had resolved not torecognise the subject of his curiosity--for fear of other recognitions."They put everything on _me_, my dear man--but I haven't the leastidea."
He looked at her askance. "Then why does the fellow say you have?"
Much at a loss for the moment, she yet found her way. "Because thefellow's so agog that he doesn't know _what_ he says!" In additionto which she was relieved by the reappearance of Gotch, who bore ona salver the object he had been sent for and to which he duly calledattention.
"The large red morocco case."
Lady Sandgate fairly jumped at it. "Your blessed cheque-book. Lay it onmy desk," she said to Gotch, though waiting till he had departed againbefore she resumed to her visitor: "Mightn't we conclude before hecomes?"
"The Prince?" Mr. Bender's imagination had strayed from the ground towhich she sought to lead it back, and it but vaguely retraced its steps."Will _he_ want your great-grandmother?"
"Well, he may when he sees her!" Lady Sandgate laughed. "And Theign,when he comes, will give you on his own question, I feel sure, everyinformation. Shall I fish it out for you?" she encouragingly asked,beside him by her secretary-desk, at which he had arrived under herpersuasive guidance and where she sought solidly to establish him,opening out the gilded crimson case for his employ, so that he had butto help himself. "What enormous cheques! _You_ can never draw one fortwo-pound-ten!"
"That's exactly what you deserve I _should_ do!" He remained after thissolemnly still, however, like some high-priest circled with ceremonies;in consonance with which, the next moment, both her hands held out tohim the open and immaculate page of the oblong series much as they mighthave presented a royal infant at the christening-font.
He failed, in his preoccupation, to receive it; so she placed it beforehim on the table, coming away with a brave gay "Well, I leave it toyou!" She had not, restlessly revolving, kept her discreet distancefor many minutes before she found herself almost face to face with therecurrent Gotch, upright at the door with a fresh announcement.
"Mr. Crimble, please--for Lady Grace."
"Mr. Crimble _again?_"--she took it discomposedly.
It reached Mr. Bender at the secretary, but to a different effect. "Mr.Crimble? Why he's just the man I want to see!"
Gotch, turning to the lobby, had only to make way for him. "Here he is,my lady."
"Then tell her ladyship."
"She has come down," said Gotch while Hugh arrived and his companionwithdrew, and while Lady Grace, reaching the scene from the otherquarter, emerged in bright equipment--in her hat, scarf and gloves.
IV
These young persons were thus at once confronted across the room, andthe girl explained her preparation. "I was listening hard--for yourknock and your voice."
"Then know that, thank God, it's all right!"--Hugh was breathless,jubilant, radiant.
"A Mantovano?" she delightedly cried.
"A Mantovano!" he proudly gave back.
"A Mantovano!"--it carried even Lady Sandgate away.
"A Mantovano--a sure thing?" Mr. Bender jumped up from his business, allgaping attention to Hugh.
"I've just left our blest Bardi," said that young man--"who hasn't theshadow of a doubt and is delighted to publish it everywhere."
"Will he publish it right here to _me?_" Mr. Bender hungrily asked.
"Well," Hugh smiled, "you can try him."
"But try him how, where?" The great collector, straining to instantaction, cast about for his hat "Where _is_ he, hey?"
"Don't you wish I'd tell you?" Hugh, in his personal elation, almostcynically answered.
"Won't you wait for the Prince?" Lady Sandgate had meanwhile asked ofher friend; but had turned more inspectingly to Lady Grace before hecould reply. "My dear child--though you're lovely!--are you sure you'reready for him?"
"For the Prince!"--the girl was vague. "Is he coming?"
"At five-forty-five." With which she consulted her bracelet watch, butonly at once to wail for alarm. "Ah, it _is_ that, and I'm not dressed!"She hurried off through the other room.
Mr. Bender, quite accepting her retreat, addressed himself againunabashed to Hugh: "It's your blest Bardi I want first--I'll take thePrince after."
The young man clearly could afford indulgence now. "Then I left him atLong's Hotel."
"Why, right near! I'll come back." And Mr. Bender's flight was on thewings of optimism.
But it all gave Hugh a quick question for Lady Grace. "Why does thePrince come, and what in the world's happening?"
"My father has suddenly returned--it may have to do with that."
The shadow of his surprise darkened visibly to that of his fear. "Mayn'tit be more than anything else to give you and me his final curse?"
"I don't know--and I think I don't care. I don't care," she said, "solong as you're right and as the greatest light of all declares you are."
"He _is_ the greatest"--Hugh was vividly of that opinion now: "I couldsee it as soon as I got there with him, the charming creature! There,_before_ the holy thing, and with the place, by good luck, for thosegreat moments, practically to ourselves--without Macintosh to take inwhat was happening or any one else at all to speak of--it was but amatter of ten minutes: he had come, he had seen, and _I_ had conquered."
"Naturally you had!"--the girl hung on him for it; "and what washappening beyond everything else was that for your original deardivination, one of the divinations of genius--with every creature allthese ages so stupid--you were being baptized on the spot a great man."
"Well, he did let poor Pappendick have it at least-he doesn't think_he's_ one: that that eminent judge couldn't, even with such a leg up,rise to my level or seize my point. And if you really want to know,"Hugh went on in his gladness, "what for _us_ has most particularly andpreciously taken place, it is that in his opinion, for my career--"
"Your reputation," she cried, "blazes out and your fortune's made?"
He did a happy violence to his modesty. "Well, Bardi adores intelligenceand takes off his hat to me."
"Then you need take off yours to nobody!"--such was Lady Grace's proudopinion. "But I should like to take off mine to _him_," she added;"which I seem to have put on--to get out and away with you--expresslyfor that."
Hugh, as he looked her over, took it up in bliss. "Ah, we'll go forthtogether to him then--thanks to your happy, splendid impulse!--andyou'll back him gorgeously up in the good he thinks of me."
His friend yet had on this a sombre second thought. "The only thing isthat our awful American----!"
But he warned her with a raised hand. "Not to speak of our awfulBriton!"
For the door had opened from the lobby, admitting Lord Theign,unattended, who, at sight of his daughter and her companion, pulledup and held them a minute in reprehensive view--all at least till Hughundauntedly, indeed quite cheerfully, greeted him.
"Since you find me again in your path, my lord, it's because I've asmall, but precious document to deliver you, if you'll allow me to doso; which I feel it important myself to place in your hand." He drewfrom his breast a pocket-book and extracted thence a small unsealedenvelope; retaining the latter a trifle helplessly in his hand whileLord Theign only opposed to this demonstration an unmitigated blankness.He went none the less bravely on. "I mentioned to you the last time wesomewhat infelicitously met that I intended to appeal to another andprobably more closely qualified artistic authority on the subject ofyour so-called Moretto; and I in fact saw the picture half an hour agowith Bardi of Milan, who, there in presence of it, did absolute, didideal justice, as I had hoped, to the claim I've been making. I thenwent with him to his hotel, close at hand, where he dashed me off thisbrief and rapid, but quite conclusive, Declaration, which, if you'll beso good as to read it, will enable you perhaps to join us in regardingthe vexed question as settled."
His lordship, having faced this speech without a sign, rested on thespeaker a somewhat more confessed intelligence, then looked hard atthe offered note and hard at the floor--all to avert himself activelyafterward and, with his head a good deal elevated, add to his distance,as it were, from every one and everything so indelicately thrust onhis attention. This movement had an ambiguous makeshift air, yet hiscompanions, under the impression of it, exchanged a hopeless look. Hisdaughter none the less lifted her voice. "If you won't take what he hasfor you from Mr. Crimble, father, will you take it from me?" And then asafter some apparent debate he appeared to decide to heed her, "It may beso long again," she said, "before you've a chance to do a thing I ask."
"The chance will depend on yourself!" he returned with high dryemphasis. But he held out his hand for the note Hugh had given her andwith which she approached him; and though face to face they seemed moreseparated than brought near by this contact without commerce. She turnedaway on one side when he had taken the missive, as Hugh had turned awayon the other; Lord Theign drew forth the contents of the envelope andbroodingly and inexpressively read the few lines; after which, as havingdone justice to their sense, he thrust the paper forth again till hisdaughter became aware and received it. She restored it to her friendwhile her father dandled off anew, but coming round this time, almost asby a circuit of the room, and meeting Hugh, who took advantage of it torepeat by a frank gesture his offer of Bardi's attestation. Lord Theignpassed with the young man on this a couple of mute minutes of the sameorder as those he had passed with Lady Grace in the same connection;their eyes dealt deeply with their eyes--but to the effect of hislordship's accepting the gift, which after another minute he had slippedinto his breast-pocket. It was not till then that he brought out a curtbut resonant "Thank you!" While the others awaited his further pleasurehe again bethought himself--then he addressed Lady Grace. "I must letMr. Bender know----"
"Mr. Bender," Hugh interposed, "does know. He's at the present momentwith the author of that note at Long's Hotel."
"Then I must now write him"--and his lordship, while he spoke and fromwhere he stood, looked in refined disconnectedness out of the window.
"Will you write _there?_"--and his daughter indicated Lady Sandgate'sdesk, at which we have seen Mr. Bender so importantly seated.
Lord Theign had a start at her again speaking to him; but he bent hisview on the convenience awaiting him and then, as to have done with sotiresome a matter, took advantage of it. He went and placed himself, andhad reached for paper and a pen when, struck apparently with the displayof some incongruous object, he uttered a sharp "Hallo!"
"You don't find things?" Lady Grace asked--as remote from him in onequarter of the room as Hugh was in another.
"On the contrary!" he oddly replied. But plainly suppressing anyfurther surprise he committed a few words to paper and put them into anenvelope, which he addressed and brought away.
"If you like," said Hugh urbanely, "I'll carry him that myself."
"But how do you know what it consists of?"
"I don't know. But I risk it."
His lordship weighed the proposition in a high impersonal manner--heeven nervously weighed his letter, shaking it with one hand upon thefinger-tips of the other; after which, as finally to acquit himselfof any measurable obligation, he allowed Hugh, by a surrender of theinteresting object, to redeem his offer of service. "Then you'll learn,"he simply said.
"And may _I_ learn?" asked Lady Grace.
"You?" The tone made so light of her that it was barely interrogative.
"May I go _with_ him?"
Her father looked at the question as at some cup of supremebitterness--a nasty and now quite regular dose with which his lips werefamiliar, but before which their first movement was always tightly toclose. "_With_ me, my lord," said Hugh at last, thoroughly determinedthey should open and intensifying the emphasis.
He had his effect, and Lord Theign's answer, addressed to Lady Grace,made indifference very comprehensive. "You may do what ever youdreadfully like!"
At this then the girl, with an air that seemed to present her choice asabsolutely taken, reached the door which Hugh had come across to openfor her.
Here she paused as for another, a last look at her father, and herexpression seemed to say to him unaidedly that, much as she would havepreferred to proceed to her act without this gross disorder, she couldyet find inspiration too in the very difficulty and the old faithsthemselves that he left her to struggle with. All this made for depthand beauty in her serious young face--as it had indeed a force that,not indistinguishably, after an instant, his lordship lost any wish forlonger exposure to. His shift of his attitude before she went out wasfairly an evasion; if the extent of the levity of one of his daughter'smade him afraid, what might have been his present strange sense but afear of the other from the extent of her gravity? Lady Grace passes fromus at any rate in her laced and pearled and plumed slimness and her paleconcentration--leaving her friend a moment, however, with his hand onthe door.
"You thanked me just now for Bardi's opinion after all," Hugh said witha smile; "and it seems to me that--after all as well--I've grounds forthanking you!" On which he left his benefactor alone.
"Tit for tat!" There broke from Lord Theign, in his solitude, with theyoung man out of earshot, that vague ironic comment; which only servedhis turn, none the less, till, bethinking himself, he had gone back tothe piece of furniture used for his late scribble and come away from itagain the next minute delicately holding a fair slip that we naturallyrecognise as Mr. Bender's forgotten cheque. This apparently surprisingvalue he now studied at his ease and to the point of its even drawingfrom him an articulate "What in damnation--?" His speculation droppedbefore the return of his hostess, whose approach through the other roomfell upon his ear and whom he awaited after a quick thrust of the chequeinto his waistcoat.
Lady Sandgate appeared now in due--that is in the most happilyadjusted--splendour; she had changed her dress for something smarterand more appropriate to the entertainment of Princes, "Tea will bedownstairs," she said. "But you're alone?"
"I've just parted," her friend replied, "with Grace and Mr. Crimble."
"'Parted' with them?"--the ambiguity struck her.
"Well, they've gone out together to flaunt their monstrous connection!"
"You speak," she laughed, "as if it were too gross--I They're surelycoming back?"
"Back to you, if you like--but not to me."
"Ah, what are you and I," she tenderly argued, "but one and the samequantity? And though you may not as yet absolutely rejoice in--well,whatever they're doing," she cheerfully added, "you'll get beautifullyused to it."
"That's just what I'm afraid of--what such horrid matters make of one!"
"At the worst then, you see"--she maintained her optimism--"therecipient of royal attentions!"
"Oh," said her companion, whom his honour seemed to leave comparativelycold, "it's simply as if the gracious Personage were coming to condole!"
Impatient of the lapse of time, in any case, she assured herself againof the hour. "Well, if he only does come!"
"John--the wretch!" Lord Theign returned--"will take care of that: hehas nailed him and will bring him."
"What was it then," his friend found occasion in the particular tone ofthis reference to demand, "what was it that, when you sent him off, Johnspoke of you in Bond Street as specifically intending?"
Oh he saw it now all lucidly--if not rather luridly--and therebythe more tragically. "He described me in his nasty rage asconsistently--well, heroic!"
"His rage"--she pieced it sympathetically out--"at your destroying hischerished credit with Bender?"
Lord Theign was more and more possessed of this view of the manner ofit. "I had come between him and some profit that he doesn't confess to,but that made him viciously and vindictively serve me up there, as hecaught the chance, to the Prince--and the People!"
She cast about, in her intimate interest, as for some clo
ser conceptionof it. "By saying that you had remarked here that you offered the Peoplethe picture--?"
"As a sacrifice--yes!--to morbid, though respectable scruples." To whichhe sharply added, as if struck with her easy grasp of the scene: "But Ihope you've nothing to call a memory for any such extravagance?"
Lady Sandgate waited--then boldly took her line. "None whatever! You hadreacted against Bender--but you hadn't gone so far as _that!_"
He had it now all vividly before him. "I had reacted--like a gentleman;but it didn't thereby follow that I acted--or spoke--like a demagogue;and my mind's a complete blank on the subject of my having done so."
"So that there only flushes through your conscience," she suggested,"the fact that he has forced your hand?"
Fevered with the sore sense of it his lordship wiped his brow. "He hasplayed me, for spite, his damned impertinent trick!"
She found but after a minute--for it wasn't easy--the right word, or theleast wrong, for the situation. "Well, even if he did so diabolicallycommit you, you still don't want--do you?--to back out?"
Resenting the suggestion, which restored all his nobler form, LordTheign fairly drew himself up. "When did I ever in all my life backout?"
"Never, never in all your life of course!"--she dashed a bucketful atthe flare. "And the picture after all----!"
"The picture after all"--he took her up in cold grim gallantdespair--"has just been pronounced definitely priceless." And thento meet her gaping ignorance: "By Mr. Crimble's latest and apparentlygreatest adviser, who strongly stamps it a Mantovano and whose practicalaffidavit I now possess."
Poor Lady Sandgate gaped but the more--she wondered and yearned."Definitely priceless?"
"Definitely priceless." After which he took from its place of lurking,considerately unfolding it, the goodly slip he had removed from herblotting-book. "Worth even more therefore than what Bender so blatantlyoffers."
Her attention fell with interest, from the distance at which shestood, on this confirmatory document, her recognition of which was notimmediate. "And is that the affidavit?"
"This is a cheque to your order, my lady, for ten thousand pounds."
"Ten thousand?"--she echoed it with a shout.
"Drawn by some hand unknown," he went on quietly.
"Unknown?"--again, in her muffled joy, she let it sound out.
"Which I found there at your desk a moment ago, and thought best, inyour interest, to rescue from accident or neglect; even though it be,save for the single stroke of a name begun," he wound up with his looklike a playing searchlight, "unhappily unsigned."
"Unsigned?"--the exhibition of her design, of her defeat, kept shakingher. "Then it isn't good--?"
"It's a Barmecide feast, my dear!"--he had still, her kind friend, hisnote of grimness and also his penetration of eye. "But who is it writesyou colossal cheques?"
"And then leaves them lying about?" Her case was so bad that youwould have seen how she felt she must _do_ something--something quitesplendid. She recovered herself, she faced the situation with all herbright bravery of expression and aspect; conscious, you might haveguessed, that she had never more strikingly embodied, on such lines, theelegant, the beautiful and the true. "Why, who can it have been but poorBreckenridge too?"
"'Breckenridge'--?" Lord Theign had _his_ smart echoes. "What in theworld does he owe you money for?"
It took her but an instant more--she performed the great repudiationquite as she might be prepared to sweep, in the Presence impending,her grandest curtsey. "_Not_, you sweet suspicious thing, for mygreat-grandmother!" And then as his glare didn't fade: "Bender makes mylife a burden--for the love of my precious Lawrence."
"Which you're weakly letting him grab?"--nothing could have beenfiner with this than Lord Theign's reprobation unless it had been hissurprise.
She shook her head as in bland compassion for such an idea. "It isn'ta payment, you goose--it's a bribe! I've withstood him, these tryingweeks, as a rock the tempest; but he wrote that and left it there, thefiend, to tempt me--to corrupt me!"
"Without putting his name?"--her companion again turned over the cheque.
She bethought herself, clearly with all her genius, as to this anomaly,and the light of reality broke. "He must have been interrupted in theartful act--he sprang up with such a bound at Mr. Crimble's news. Atonce then--for his interest in it--he hurried off, leaving the chequeforgotten and unfinished." She smiled more intensely, her eyes attached,as from fascination, to the morsel of paper still handled by her friend."But of course on his next visit he'll _add_ his great signature."
"The devil he will!"--and Lord Theign, with the highest spirit, tore thecrisp token into several pieces, which fluttered, as worthless now aspure snowflakes, to the floor.
"Ay, ay, ay!"--it drew from her a wail of which the character, for itssharp inconsequence, was yet comic.
This renewed his stare at her. "Do _you_ want to back out? I mean fromyour noble stand."
As quickly, however, she had saved herself. "I'd rather do even whatyou're doing--offer my treasure to the Thingumbob!"
He was touched by this even to sympathy. "Will you then _join_ me insetting the example of a great donation------?"
"To the What-do-you-call-it?" she extravagantly smiled.
"I call it," he said with dignity, "the 'National Gallery.'"
She closed her eyes as with a failure of breath. "Ah my dear friend--!"
"It would convince me," he went on, insistent and persuasive.
"Of the sincerity of my affection?"--she drew nearer to him.
"It would comfort me"--he was satisfied with his own expression. Yetin a moment, when she had come all rustlingly and fragrantly close, "Itwould captivate me," he handsomely added.
"It would captivate you?" It was for _her_, we should have seen, to besatisfied with his expression; and, with our more informed observationof all it was a question of her giving up, she would have struck us assubtly bargaining.
He gallantly amplified. "It would peculiarly--by which I mean it wouldso naturally--unite us!"
Well, that was all she wanted. "Then for a complete union with you--offact as well as of fond fancy!" she smiled--"there's nothing, even to myone ewe lamb, I'm not ready to surrender."
"Ah, we don't surrender," he urged--"we enjoy!"
"Yes," she understood: "with the glory of our grand gift thrown in."
"We quite swagger," he gravely observed--"though even swaggering wouldafter this be dull without you."
"Oh, I'll _swagger_ with you!" she cried as if it quite settled and madeup for everything; and then impatiently, as she beheld Lord John, whomthe door had burst open to admit: "The Prince?"
"The Prince!"--the young man launched it as a call to arms.
They had fallen apart on the irruption, the pair discovered, but sheflashed straight at her lover: "Then we can swagger now!"
Lord Theign had reached the open door. "I meet him below."
Demurring, debating, however, she stayed him a moment. "But oughtn'tI--in my own house?"
His lordship caught her meaning. "You mean he may think--?" But he aseasily pronounced. "He shall think the Truth!" And with a kiss of hishand to her he was gone.
Lord John, who had gazed in some wonder at these demonstrations, wasquickly about to follow, but she checked him with an authority shehad never before used and which was clearly the next moment to proveirresistible. "Lord John, be so good as to stop." Looking about at thecondition of a room on the point of receiving so august a character,she observed on the floor the fragments of the torn cheque, to which shesharply pointed. "And please pick up that litter!"
THE END.
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