IV
"Then Theign's not yet here!" Lord John had to resign himself as hegreeted his American ally. "But he told me I should find you."
"He has kept me waiting," that gentleman returned--"but what's thematter with him anyway?"
"The matter with him"--Lord John treated such ignorance asirritating--"must of course be this beastly thing in the 'Journal.'"
Mr. Bender proclaimed, on the other hand, his incapacity to seize suchconnections. "What's the matter with the beastly thing?"
"Why, aren't you aware that the stiffest bit of it is a regular dig atyou?"
"If you call _that_ a regular dig you can't have had much experience ofthe Papers. I've known them to dig much deeper."
"I've had _no_ experience of such horrid attacks, thank goodness; but doyou mean to say," asked Lord John with the surprise of his own delicacy,"that you don't unpleasantly feel it?"
"Feel it where, my dear sir?"
"Why, God bless me, such impertinence, everywhere!"
"All over me at once?"--Mr. Bender took refuge in easy humour. "Well,I'm a large man--so when I want to feel so much I look out for somethinggood. But what, if he suffers from the blot on his ermine--ain't thatwhat you wear?--does our friend propose to do about it?"
Lord John had a demur, which was immediately followed by theapprehension of support in his uncertainty. Lady Sandgate was beforethem, having reached them through the other room, and to her he at oncereferred the question. "What _will_ Theign propose, do you think, LadySandgate, to do about it?"
She breathed both her hospitality and her vagueness. "To 'do'----?"
"Don't you know about the thing in the 'Journal'--awfully offensive allround?"
"There'd be even a little pinch for _you_ in it," Mr. Bender said toher--"if you were bent on fitting the shoe!"
Well, she met it all as gaily as was compatible with a firm look at herelder guest while she took her place with them. "Oh, the shoes of suchmonsters as that are much too big for poor _me!_" But she was morespecific for Lord John. "I know only what Grace has just told me; butsince it's a question of footgear dear Theign will certainly--what youmay call--take his stand!"
Lord John welcomed this assurance. "If I know him he'll take itsplendidly!"
Mr. Bender's attention was genial, though rather more detached. "Andwhat--while he's about it--will he take it particularly _on?_"
"Oh, we've plenty of things, thank heaven," said Lady Sandgate, "for aman in Theign's position to hold fast by!"
Lord John freely confirmed it. "Scores and scores--rather! And I willsay for us that, with the rotten way things seem going, the fact maysoon become a real convenience."
Mr. Bender seemed struck--and not unsympathetic. "I see that your systemwould be rather a fraud if you hadn't pretty well fixed _that!_"
Lady Sandgate spoke as one at present none the less substantially warnedand convinced. "It doesn't, however, alter the fact that we've thus inour ears the first growl of an outcry."
"Ah," Lord John concurred, "we've unmistakably the first growl of anoutcry!"
Mr. Bender's judgment on the matter paused at sight of Lord Theign,introduced and announced, as Lord John spoke, by Gotch; but with theresult of his addressing directly the person so presenting himself."Why, they tell me that what this means, Lord Theign, is the first growlof an outcry!"
The appearance of the most eminent figure in the group might have beenheld in itself to testify to some such truth; in the sense at leastthat a certain conscious radiance, a gathered light of battle in hislordship's aspect would have been explained by his having taken thefull measure--an inner success with which he glowed--of some highprovocation. He was flushed, but he bore it as the ensign of his house;he was so admirably, vividly dressed, for the morning hour and for hisjourney, that he shone as with the armour of a knight; and the wholeeffect of him, from head to foot, with every jerk of his unconcern andevery flash of his ease, was to call attention to his being utterlyunshaken and knowing perfectly what he was about. It was at this happypitch that he replied to the prime upsetter of his peace.
"I'm afraid I don't know what anything means to _you_, Mr. Bender--butit's exactly to find out that I've asked you, with our friend John,kindly to meet me here. For a very brief conference, dear lady, by yourgood leave," he went on to Lady Sandgate; "at which I'm only too pleasedthat you yourself should assist. The 'first growl' of any outcry, I maymention to you all, affects me no more than the last will----!"
"So I'm delighted to gather"--Lady Sandgate took him straight up--"thatyou don't let go your inestimable Cure."
He at first quite stared superior--"'Let go'?"--but then treated it witha lighter touch. "Upon my honour I might, you know--that dose of thedaily press has made me feel so fit! I arrive at any rate," he pursuedto the others and in particular to Mr. Bender, "I arrive with mydecision taken--which I've thought may perhaps interest you. If thattuppeny rot _is_ an attempt at an outcry I simply nip it in the bud."
Lord John rejoicingly approved. "Absolutely the only way--with the leastself-respect--to treat it!"
Lady Sandgate, on the other hand, sounded a sceptical note. "But are yousure it's so easy, Theign, to hush up a _real_ noise?"
"It ain't what I'd call a real one, Lady Sandgate," Mr. Bender said;"you can generally distinguish a real one from the squeak of twoor three mice! But granted mice do affect you, Lord Theign, it willinterest me to hear what sort of a trap--by what you say--you propose toset for them."
"You must allow me to measure, myself, Mr. Bender," his lordshipreplied, "the importance of a gross freedom publicly used with myabsolutely personal proceedings and affairs; to the cause and originof any definite report of which--in such circles!--I'm afraid I ratherwonder if you yourself can't give me a clue."
It took Mr. Bender a minute to do justice to these stately remarks. "Yourather wonder if I've talked of how I feel about your detaining in yourhands my Beautiful Duchess----?"
"Oh, if you've already published her as 'yours'--with your _power_of publication!" Lord Theign coldly laughed,--"of course I trace theconnection!"
Mr. Benders acceptance of responsibility clearly cost him no shade ofa pang. "Why, I haven't for quite a while talked of a blessed otherthing--and I'm capable of growing more profane over my _not_ getting herthan I guess any one would dare to be if I did."
"Well, you'll certainly not 'get' her, Mr. Bender," Lady Sandgate, asfor reasons of her own, bravely trumpeted; "and even if there were achance of it don't you see that your way wouldn't be publicly to abuseour noble friend?"
Mr. Bender but beamed, in reply, upon that personage. "Oh, I guessour noble friend knows I _have_ to talk big about big things. Youunderstand, sir, the scream of the eagle!"
"I'll forgive you," Lord Theign civilly returned, "all the big talkyou like if you'll now understand _me_. My retort to that hireling packshall be at once to dispose of a picture."
Mr. Bender rather failed to follow. "But that's what you wanted to dobefore."
"Pardon me," said his lordship--"I make a difference. It's what youwanted me to do."
The mystification, however, continued. "And you were _not_--as youseemed then--willing?"
Lord Theign waived cross-questions. "Well, I'm willing _now_--that's allthat need concern us. Only, once more and for the last time," he addedwith all authority, "you can't have our Duchess!"
"You can't have our Duchess!"--and Lord John, as before the altar ofpatriotism, wrapped it in sacrificial sighs.
"You can't have our Duchess!" Lady Sandgate repeated, but with a gracethat took the sting from her triumph. And she seemed still all sweetsociability as she added: "I wish he'd tell you too, you dreadful richthing, that you can't have anything at all!"
Lord Theign, however, in the interest of harmony, deprecated thatrigour. "Ah, what then would become of my happy retort?"
"And what--as it _is_," Mr. Bender asked--"becomes of my unhappygrievance?"
"Wouldn't a really great capture make up to you for
that?"
"Well, I take more interest in what I want than in what I have--and itdepends, don't you see, on how you measure the size."
Lord John had at once in this connection a bright idea. "Shouldn't youlike to go back there and take the measure yourself?"
Mr. Bender considered him as through narrowed eyelids. "Look again atthat tottering Moretto?"
"Well, its size--as you say--isn't in _any_ light a negligiblequantity."
"You mean that--big as it is--it hasn't yet stopped growing?"
The question, however, as he immediately showed, resided in what LordTheign himself meant "It's more to the purpose," he said to Mr. Bender,"that I should mention to you the leading feature, or in other wordsthe very essence, of my plan of campaign--which is to put the picture atonce on view." He marked his idea with a broad but elegant gesture. "Onview as a thing definitely disposed of."
"I say, I say, I say!" cried Lord John, moved by this bold stroke tohigh admiration.
Lady Sandgate's approval was more qualified. "But on view, dear Theign,how?"
"With one of those pushing people in Bond Street." And then as for thecrushing climax of his policy: "As a Mantovano pure and simple."
"But my dear man," she quavered, "if it _isn't_ one?"
Mr. Bender at once anticipated; the wind had suddenly risen for himand he let out sail. "Lady Sand-gate, it's going, by all that's--well,interesting, to _be_ one!"
Lord Theign took him up with pleasure. "You seize me? We _treat_ it asone!"
Lord John eagerly borrowed the emphasis. "We _treat_ it as one!"
Mr. Bender meanwhile fed with an opened appetite on the thought--he evengave it back larger. "As the long-lost Number Eight!"
Lord Theign happily seized _him_. "That will be it--to a charm!"
"It will make them," Mr. Bender asked, "madder than anything?"
His patron--if not his client--put it more nobly. "It will markedlyaffirm my attitude."
"Which will in turn the more markedly create discussion."
"It may create all it will!"
"Well, if _you_ don't mind it, _I_ don't!" Mr. Bender concluded. Butthough bathed in this high serenity he was all for the rapid applicationof it elsewhere. "You'll put the thing on view right off?"
"As soon as the proper arrangement----"
"You put off your journey to _make_ it?" Lady Sand-gate at once broke in.
Lord Theign bethought himself--with the effect of a gracious confidencein the others. "Not if these friends will act."
"Oh, I guess we'll _act!_" Mr. Bender declared.
"Ah, _won't_ we though!" Lord John re-echoed.
"You understand then I have an interest?" Mr. Bender went on to LordTheign.
His lordship's irony met it. "I accept that complication--which so muchsimplifies!"
"And yet also have a liberty?"
"Where else would be those you've taken? The point is," said LordTheign, "that _I_ have a show."
It settled Mr. Bender. "Then I'll _fix_ your show." He snatched up hishat. "Lord John, come right round!"
Lord John had of himself reached the door, which he opened to let thewhirlwind tremendously figured by his friend pass out first. Takingleave of the others he gave it even his applause. "The fellow can doanything anywhere!" And he hastily followed.