V
Lady Sandgate, left alone with Lord Theign, drew the line at theircompanion's enthusiasm. "That may be true of Mr. Bender--for it'sdreadful how he bears one down. But I simply find him a terror."
"Well," said her friend, who seemed disposed not to fatigue thequestion, "I dare say a terror will help me." He had other business towhich he at once gave himself. "And now, if you please, for that girl."
"I'll send her to you," she replied, "if you can't stay to luncheon."
"I've three or four things to do," he pleaded, "and I lunch with Kittyat one."
She submitted in that case--but disappointedly. "With BerkeleySquare then you've time. But I confess I don't quite grasp the so oddinspiration that you've set those men to carry out."
He showed surprise and regret, but even greater decision. "Then itneedn't trouble you, dear--it's enough that I myself go straight."
"Are you so very convinced it's straight?"--she wouldn't be a bore tohim, but she couldn't not be a blessing.
"What in the world else is it," he asked, "when, having good reasons,one acts on 'em?"
"You must have an immense array," she sighed, "to fly so in the face ofOpinion!"
"'Opinion'?" he commented--"I fly in its face? Why, the vulgar thing,as I'm taking my quiet walk, flies in mine! I give it a whack with myumbrella and send it about its business." To which he added with morereproach: "It's enough to have been dished by Grace--without _your_falling away!"
Sadly and sweetly she defended herself. "It's only my greataffection--and all that these years have been for us: _they_ it is thatmake me wish you weren't so proud."
"I've a perfect sense, my dear, of what these years have been for us--avery charming matter. But 'proud' is it you find me of the daughter whodoes her best to ruin me, or of the one who does her best to humiliate?"
Lady Sandgate, not undiscernibly, took her choice of ignoring the pointof this. "Your surrenders to Kitty are your own affair--but are you sureyou can really bear to see Grace?"
"I seem expected indeed to bear much," he said with more and more of hisparental bitterness, "but I don't know that I'm yet in a funk beforemy child. Doesn't she _want_ to see me, with any contrition, after thetrick she has played me?" And then as his companion's answer failed: "Inspite of which trick you suggest that I should leave the country with nosign of her explaining--?"
His hostess raised her head. "She does want to see you, I know; but youmust recall the sequel to that bad hour at Dedborough--when it was youwho declined to see _her_."
"Before she left the house with you, the next day, for this?"--hewas entirely reminiscent. "What I recall is that even if I hadcondoned--that evening--her deception of _me_ in my folly, I stillloathed, for my friend's sake, her practical joke on poor John."
Lady Sandgate indulged in the shrug conciliatory. "It was your verycomplaint that your own appeal to her _became_ an appeal from herself."
"Yes," he returned, so well he remembered, "she was about as civil tome then--picking a quarrel with me on such a trumped-up ground!--as thatdevil of a fellow in the newspaper; the taste of whose elegant remarks,for that matter, she must now altogether enjoy!"
His good friend showily balanced and might have been about to reply withweight; but what she in fact brought out was only: "I see you're rightabout it: I must let her speak for herself."
"That I shall greatly prefer to her speaking--as she did soextraordinarily, out of the blue, at Dedborough, upon my honour--for thewonderful friends she picks up: the picture-man introduced by her (whatwas his name?) who regularly 'cheeked' me, as I suppose he'd call it,in my own house, and whom I hope, by the way, that under this roof she'snot able to be quite so thick with!"
If Lady Sandgate winced at that vain dream she managed not to betrayit, and she had, in any embarrassment on this matter, the support, as weknow, of her own tried policy. "She leads her life under this roofvery much as under yours; and she's not of an age, remember, for meto pretend either to watch her movements or to control her contacts."Leaving him however thus to perform his pleasure the charming woman hadbefore she went an abrupt change of tone. "Whatever your relations withothers, dear friend, don't forget that _I'm_ still here."
Lord Theign accepted the reminder, though, the circumstances being such,it scarce moved him to ecstasy. "That you're here, thank heaven, is ofcourse a comfort--or would be if you understood."
"Ah," she submissively sighed, "if I don't always 'understand' a spiritso much higher than mine and a situation so much more complicated,certainly, I at least always defer, I at least always--well, what can Isay but worship?" And then as he remained not other than finely passive,"The old altar, Theign," she went on--"and a spark of the old fire!"
He had not looked at her on this--it was as if he shrank, with hispreoccupations, from a tender passage; but he let her take his lefthand. "So I feel!" he was, however, kind enough to answer.
"Do feel!" she returned with much concentration. She raised the handto her pressed lips, dropped it and with a rich "Good-bye!" reached thethreshold of the other room.
"May I smoke?" he asked before she had disappeared.
"Dear, yes!"
He had meanwhile taken out his cigarette case and was looking aboutfor a match. But something else occurred to him. "You must come toVictoria."
"Rather!" she said with intensity; and with that she passed away.