I
LADY SANDGATE, on a morning late in May, entered her drawing-room bythe door that opened at the right of that charming retreat as a personcoming in faced Bruton Street; and she met there at this moment Mr.Gotch, her butler, who had just appeared in the much wider doorwayforming opposite the Bruton Street windows an apartment not less ample,lighted from the back of the house and having its independent connectionwith the upper floors and the lower. She showed surprise at notimmediately finding the visitor to whom she had been called.
"But Mr. Crimble------?"
"Here he is, my lady." And he made way for that gentleman, whoemerged from the back room; Gotch observing the propriety of a promptwithdrawal.
"I went in for a minute, with your servant's permission," Hughexplained, "to see your famous Lawrence--which is splendid; he was sogood as to arrange the light." The young man's dress was of a form lessrelaxed than on the occasion of his visit to Dedborough; yet the softfelt hat that he rather restlessly crumpled as he talked marked thelimit of his sacrifice to vain appearances.
Lady Sandgate was at once interested in the punctuality of his reportedact. "Gotch thinks as much of my grandmother as I do--and even seems tohave ended by taking her for his very own."
"One sees, unmistakably, from her beauty, that you at any rate are ofher line," Hugh allowed himself, not without confidence, the amusementof replying; "and I must make sure of another look at her when I've agood deal more time."
His hostess heard him as with a lapse of hope. "You hadn't then come_for_ the poor dear?" And then as he obviously hadn't, but for somethingquite else: "I thought, from so prompt an interest, that she might becoveted--!" It dropped with a yearning sigh.
"You imagined me sent by some prowling collector?" Hugh asked. "Ah, Ishall never do their work--unless to betray them: _that_ I shouldn't inthe least mind!--and I'm here, frankly, at this early hour, to ask yourconsent to my seeing Lady Grace a moment on a particular business, ifshe can kindly give me time."
"You've known then of her being with me?"
"I've known of her coming to you straight on leaving Dedborough,"he explained; "of her wishing not to go to her sister's, and of LordTheign's having proceeded, as they say, or being on the point ofproceeding, to some foreign part."
"And you've learnt it from having seen her--these three or four weeks?"
"I've met her--but just barely--two or three times: at a 'private view'at the opera, in the lobby, and that sort of thing. But she hasn't toldyou?"
Lady Sandgate neither affirmed nor denied; she only turned on him herthick lustre. "I wanted to see how much _you'd_ tell." She waited evenas for more, but this not coming she helped herself. "Once again atdinner?"
"Yes, but alas not near her!"
"Once then at a private view?--when, with the squash they usually are,you might have been very near her indeed!"
The young man, his hilarity quickened, took but a moment for the truth."Yes--it _was_ a squash!"
"And once," his hostess pursued, "in the lobby of the opera?"
"After 'Tristan'--yes; but with some awful grand people I didn't know."
She recognised; she estimated the grandeur. "Oh, the Pennimans arenobody! But now," she asked, "you've come, you say, on 'business'?"
"Very important, please--which accounts for the hour I've ventured andthe appearance I present."
"I don't ask you too much to 'account,'" Lady Sandgate kindly said; "butI can't not wonder if she hasn't told you what things have happened."
He cast about. "She has had no chance to tell me anything--beyond thefact of her being here."
"Without the reason?"
"'The reason'?" he echoed.
She gave it up, going straighter. "She's with me then as an old firmfriend. Under my care and protection."
"I see"--he took it, with more penetration than enthusiasm, as a hint inrespect to himself. "She puts you on your guard."
Lady Sandgate expressed it more graciously. "She puts me on myhonour--or at least her father does."
"As to her seeing _me_"
"As to _my_ seeing at least--what may happen to her."
"Because--you say--things _have_ happened?"
His companion fairly sounded him. "You've only talked--when you'vemet--of 'art'?"
"Well," he smiled, "'art is long'!"
"Then I hope it may see you through! But you should know first that LordTheign is presently due--"
"_Here_, back already from abroad?"--he was all alert.
"He has not yet gone--he comes up this morning to start."
"And stops here on his way?"
"To take the _train de luxe_ this afternoon to his annual Salsomaggiore.But with so little time to spare," she went on reassuringly, "that,to simplify--as he wired me an hour ago from Dedborough--he has givenrendezvous here to Mr. Bender, who is particularly to wait for him."
"And who may therefore arrive at any moment?"
She looked at her bracelet watch. "Scarcely before noon. So you'll justhave your chance--"
"Thank the powers then!"--Hugh grasped at it. "I shall have it best ifyou'll be so good as to tell me first--well," he faltered, "what it isthat, to my great disquiet, you've further alluded to; what it is thathas occurred."
Lady Sandgate took her time, but her good-nature and other sentimentspronounced. "Haven't you at least guessed that she has fallen under herfather's extreme reprobation?"
"Yes, so much as that--that she must have greatly annoyed him--I havebeen supposing. But isn't it by her having asked me to act for her? Imean about the Mantovano--which I _have_ done."
Lady Sandgate wondered. "You've 'acted'?"
"It's what I've come to tell her at last--and I'm all impatience."
"I see, I see"--she had caught a clue. "He hated that--yes; but youhaven't really made out," she put to him, "the _other_ effect of yourhour at Dedborough?" She recognised, however, while she spoke, thathis divination had failed, and she didn't trouble him to confess it."Directly you had gone she 'turned down' Lord John. Declined, I mean,the offer of his hand in marriage."
Hugh was clearly as much mystified as anything else. "He proposedthere--?"
"He had spoken, that day, _before_--before your talk with Lord Theign,who had every confidence in her accepting him. But you came, Mr.Crimble, you went; and when her suitor reappeared, just after you _had_gone, for his answer--"
"She wouldn't have him?" Hugh asked with a precipitation of interest.
But Lady Sandgate could humour almost any curiosity. "She wouldn't lookat him."
He bethought himself. "But had she said she would?"
"So her father indignantly considers."
"That's the _ground_ of his indignation?"
"He had his reasons for counting on her, and it has determined a painfulcrisis."
Hugh Crimble turned this over--feeling apparently for something hedidn't find. "I'm sorry to hear such things, but where's the connectionwith me?"
"Ah, you know best yourself, and if you don't see any---!" In that case,Lady Sandgate's motion implied, she washed her hands of it.
Hugh had for a moment the air of a young man treated to the sweet chanceto guess a conundrum--which he gave up. "I really don't see any, LadySandgate. But," he a little inconsistently said, "I'm greatly obliged toyou for telling me."
"Don't mention it!--though I think it _is_ good of me," she smiled, "onso short an acquaintance." To which she added more gravely: "I leave youthe situation--but I'm willing to let you know that I'm all on Grace'sside."
"So am I, _rather!_--please let me frankly say."
He clearly refreshed, he even almost charmed her. "It's the very leastyou can say!--though I'm not sure whether you say it as the simplestor as the very subtlest of men. But in case you don't know as I do howlittle the particular candidate I've named----"
"Had a right or a claim to succeed with her?" he broke in--all quickintelligence here at least. "No, I don't perhaps know as well as youdo--but I think I know as well as I ju
st yet require."
"There you are then! And if you did prevent," his hostess maturelypursued, "what wouldn't have been--well, good or nice, I'm quite on yourside too."
Our young man seemed to feel the shade of ambiguity, but he reached ata meaning. "You're with me in my plea for our defending at any cost ofeffort or ingenuity--"
"The precious picture Lord Theign exposes?"--she took his presumed sensefaster than he had taken hers. But she hung fire a moment with her replyto it. "Well, will you keep the secret of everything I've said or say?"
"To the death, to the stake, Lady Sandgate!"
"Then," she momentously returned, "I only want, too, to make Benderimpossible. If you ask me," she pursued, "how I arrange that with mydeep loyalty to Lord Theign----"
"I don't ask you anything of the sort," he interrupted--"I wouldn't askyou for the world; and my own bright plan for achieving the _coup_ youmention------"
"You'll have time, at the most," she said, consulting afresh herbracelet watch, "to explain to Lady Grace." She reached an electricbell, which she touched--facing then her visitor again with an abruptand slightly embarrassed change of tone. "You do think _my_ greatportrait splendid?"
He had strayed far from it and all too languidly came back. "YourLawrence there? As I said, magnificent."
But the butler had come in, interrupting, straight from the lobby; ofwhom she made her request. "Let her ladyship know--Mr. Crimble."
Gotch looked hard at Hugh and the crumpled hat--almost as if having anoption. But he resigned himself to repeating, with a distinctness thatscarce fell short of the invidious, "Mr. Crimble," and departed on hiserrand.
Lady Sandgate's fair flush of diplomacy had meanwhile not faded."Couldn't you, with your immense cleverness and power, get theGovernment to do something?"
"About your picture?" Hugh betrayed on this head a graceless detachment."You too then want to sell?"
Oh she righted herself. "Never to a private party!"
"Mr. Bender's not after it?" he asked--though scarce lighting hisreluctant interest with a forced smile.
"Most intensely after it. But never," cried the proprietress, "to abloated alien!"
"Then I applaud your patriotism. Only why not," he asked, "carryingthat magnanimity a little further, set us all an example as splendid asthe object itself?"
"Give it you for nothing?" She threw up shocked hands. "Because I'm anaged female pauper and can't make _every_ sacrifice."
Hugh pretended--none too convincingly--to think. "Will you let them haveit very cheap?"
"Yes--for less than such a bribe as Bender's."
"Ah," he said expressively, "that might be, and still----!"
"Well," she had a flare of fond confidence. "I'll find out what he'lloffer--if you'll on your side do what you can--and then ask them a thirdless." And she followed it up--as if suddenly conceiving him a prig."See here, Mr. Crimble, I've been--and this very first time I--charmingto you."
"You have indeed," he returned; "but you throw back on it a lurid lightif it has all been for _that!_"
"It has been--well, to keep things as I want them; and if I've given youprecious information mightn't you on your side--"
"Estimate its value in cash?"--Hugh sharply took her up. "Ah, LadySandgate, I _am_ in your debt, but if you really bargain for yourprecious information I'd rather we assume that I haven't enjoyed it."
She made him, however, in reply, a sign for silence; she had heard LadyGrace enter the other room from the back landing, and, reaching thenearer door, she disposed of the question with high gay bravery. "Iwon't bargain with the Treasury!"--she had passed out by the time LadyGrace arrived.