“Then Theign’s not yet here!” Lord John had to resign himself as he
greeted his American ally. “But he told me I should find you.”
“He has kept me waiting,” that gentleman returned--“but what’s the
matter with him anyway?”
“The matter with him”--Lord John treated such ignorance as
irritating--“must of course be this beastly thing in the ‘Journal.’”
Mr. Bender proclaimed, on the other hand, his incapacity to seize such
connections. “What’s the matter with the beastly thing?”
“Why, aren’t you aware that the stiffest bit of it is a regular dig at
you?”
“If you call _that_ a regular dig you can’t have had much experience of
the Papers. I’ve known them to dig much deeper.”
“I’ve had _no_ experience of such horrid attacks, thank goodness; but do
you 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 something
good. But what, if he suffers from the blot on his ermine--ain’t that
what you wear?--does our friend propose to do about it?”
Lord John had a demur, which was immediately followed by the
apprehension of support in his uncertainty. Lady Sandgate was before
them, having reached them through the other room, and to her he at once
referred the question. “What _will_ Theign propose, do you think, Lady
Sandgate, 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 all
round?”
“There’d be even a little pinch for _you_ in it,” Mr. Bender said to
her--“if you were bent on fitting the shoe!”
Well, she met it all as gaily as was compatible with a firm look at her
elder guest while she took her place with them. “Oh, the shoes of such
monsters as that are much too big for poor _me!_” But she was more
specific for Lord John. “I know only what Grace has just told me; but
since it’s a question of footgear dear Theign will certainly--what you
may call--take his stand!”
Lord John welcomed this assurance. “If I know him he’ll take it
splendidly!”
Mr. Bender’s attention was genial, though rather more detached. “And
what--while he’s about it--will he take it particularly _on?_”
“Oh, we’ve plenty of things, thank heaven,” said Lady Sandgate, “for a
man in Theign’s position to hold fast by!”
Lord John freely confirmed it. “Scores and scores--rather! And I will
say for us that, with the rotten way things seem going, the fact may
soon become a real convenience.”
Mr. Bender seemed struck--and not unsympathetic. “I see that your system
would be rather a fraud if you hadn’t pretty well fixed _that!_”
Lady Sandgate spoke as one at present none the less substantially warned
and convinced. “It doesn’t, however, alter the fact that we’ve thus in
our ears the first growl of an outcry.”
“Ah,” Lord John concurred, “we’ve unmistakably the first growl of an
outcry!”
Mr. Bender’s judgment on the matter paused at sight of Lord Theign,
introduced and announced, as Lord John spoke, by Gotch; but with the
result of his addressing directly the person so presenting himself.
“Why, they tell me that what this means, Lord Theign, is the first growl
of an outcry!”
The appearance of the most eminent figure in the group might have been
held in itself to testify to some such truth; in the sense at least
that a certain conscious radiance, a gathered light of battle in his
lordship’s aspect would have been explained by his having taken the
full measure--an inner success with which he glowed--of some high
provocation. 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 his
journey, that he shone as with the armour of a knight; and the whole
effect of him, from head to foot, with every jerk of his unconcern and
every flash of his ease, was to call attention to his being utterly
unshaken and knowing perfectly what he was about. It was at this happy
pitch that he replied to the prime upsetter of his peace.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what anything means to _you_, Mr. Bender--but
it’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 your
good leave,” he went on to Lady Sandgate; “at which I’m only too pleased
that you yourself should assist. The ‘first growl’ of any outcry, I may
mention to you all, affects me no more than the last will----!”
“So I’m delighted to gather”--Lady Sandgate took him straight up--“that
you don’t let go your inestimable Cure.”
He at first quite stared superior--“‘Let go’?”--but then treated it with
a lighter touch. “Upon my honour I might, you know--that dose of the
daily press has made me feel so fit! I arrive at any rate,” he pursued
to the others and in particular to Mr. Bender, “I arrive with my
decision taken--which I’ve thought may perhaps interest you. If that
tuppeny rot _is_ an attempt at an outcry I simply nip it in the bud.”
Lord John rejoicingly approved. “Absolutely the only way--with the least
self-respect--to treat it!”
Lady Sandgate, on the other hand, sounded a sceptical note. “But are you
sure 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 two
or three mice! But granted mice do affect you, Lord Theign, it will
interest me to hear what sort of a trap--by what you say--you propose to
set for them.”
“You must allow me to measure, myself, Mr. Bender,” his lordship
replied, “the importance of a gross freedom publicly used with my
absolutely personal proceedings and affairs; to the cause and origin
of any definite report of which--in such circles!--I’m afraid I rather
wonder if you yourself can’t give me a clue.”
It took Mr. Bender a minute to do justice to these stately remarks. “You
rather wonder if I’ve talked of how I feel about your detaining in your
hands 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 the
connection!”
Mr. Benders acceptance of responsibility clearly cost him no shade of
a pang. “Why, I haven’t for quite a while talked of a blessed other
thing--and I’m capable of growing more profane over my _not_ getting her
than I guess any one would dare to be if I did.”
“Well, you’ll certainly not ‘get’ her, Mr. Bender,” Lady Sandgate, as
for reasons of her own, bravely trumpeted; “and even if there were a
chance of it don’t you see that your way wouldn’t be publicly to abuse
our noble friend?”
Mr. Bender but beamed, in reply, upon that personage. “Oh, I guess
our noble friend knows I _have_ to talk big about big things. You
understand, sir, the scream of the eagle!”
“I’ll forgive you,” Lord Theign civilly returned, “all the big talk
you like if you’ll now understand _me_. My retort to that hireling pack
shall be at once to dispose of a picture.”
Mr. Bender rather failed to follow. “But that’s what you wanted to do
before.”
“Pardon me,” said his lordship--“I make a difference. It’s what you
wanted me to do.”
The mystification, however, continued. “And you were _not_--as you
seemed then--willing?”
Lord Theign waived cross-questions. “Well, I’m willing _now_--that’s all
that need concern us. Only, once more and for the last time,” he added
with all authority, “you can’t have our Duchess!”
“You can’t have our Duchess!”--and Lord John, as before the altar of
patriotism, wrapped it in sacrificial sighs.
“You can’t have our Duchess!” Lady Sandgate repeated, but with a grace
that took the sting from her triumph. And she seemed still all sweet
sociability as she added: “I wish he’d tell you too, you dreadful rich
thing, that you can’t have anything at all!”
Lord Theign, however, in the interest of harmony, deprecated that
rigour. “Ah, what then would become of my happy retort?”
“And what--as it _is_,” Mr. Bender asked--“becomes of my unhappy
grievance?”
“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 it
depends, don’t you see, on how you measure the size.”
Lord John had at once in this connection a bright idea. “Shouldn’t you
like to go back there and take the measure yourself?”
Mr. Bender considered him as through narrowed eyelids. “Look again at
that tottering Moretto?”
“Well, its size--as you say--isn’t in _any_ light a negligible
quantity.”
“You mean that--big as it is--it hasn’t yet stopped growing?”
The question, however, as he immediately showed, resided in what Lord
Theign 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 words
the very essence, of my plan of campaign--which is to put the picture at
once on view.” He marked his idea with a broad but elegant gesture. “On
view as a thing definitely disposed of.”
“I say, I say, I say!” cried Lord John, moved by this bold stroke to
high 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 the
crushing 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 him
and 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 as
one!”
Lord John eagerly borrowed the emphasis. “We _treat_ it as one!”
Mr. Bender meanwhile fed with an opened appetite on the thought--he even
gave 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 markedly
affirm 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. But
though bathed in this high serenity he was all for the rapid application
of 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 confidence
in 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 Lord
Theign.
His lordship’s irony met it. “I accept that complication--which so much
simplifies!”
“And yet also have a liberty?”
“Where else would be those you’ve taken? The point is,” said Lord
Theign, “that _I_ have a show.”
It settled Mr. Bender. “Then I’ll _fix_ your show.” He snatched up his
hat. “Lord John, come right round!”
Lord John had of himself reached the door, which he opened to let the
whirlwind tremendously figured by his friend pass out first. Taking
leave of the others he gave it even his applause. “The fellow can do
anything anywhere!” And he hastily followed.
V
Lady Sandgate, left alone with Lord Theign, drew the line at their
companion’s enthusiasm. “That may be true of Mr. Bender--for it’s
dreadful how he bears one down. But I simply find him a terror.”
“Well,” said her friend, who seemed disposed not to fatigue the
question, “I dare say a terror will help me.” He had other business to
which 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 Kitty
at one.”
She submitted in that case--but disappointedly. “With Berkeley
Square then you’ve time. But I confess I don’t quite grasp the so odd
inspiration that you’ve set those men to carry out.”
He showed surprise and regret, but even greater decision. “Then it
needn’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 to
him, 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 of
Opinion!”
“‘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 my
umbrella and send it about its business.” To which he added with more
reproach: “It’s enough to have been dished by Grace--without _your_
falling away!”
Sadly and sweetly she defended herself. “It’s only my great
affection--and all that these years have been for us: _they_ it is that
make me wish you weren’t so proud.”
“I’ve a perfect sense, my dear, of what these years have been for us--a
very charming matter. But ‘proud’ is it you find me of the daughter who
does 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 point
of this. “Your surrenders to Kitty are your own affair--but are you sure
you can really bear to see Grace?”
“I seem expected indeed to bear much,” he said with more and more of his
parental bitterness, “but I don’t know that I’m yet in a funk before
my child. Doesn’t she _want_ to see me, with any contrition, after the
trick she has played me?” And then as his companion’s answer failed: “In
spite of which trick you suggest that I should leave the country with no
sign of her explaining--?”
His hostess raised her head. “She does want to see you, I know; but you
must recall the sequel to that bad hour at Dedborough--when it was you
who declined to see _her_.”
“Before she left the house with you, the next day, for this?”--he
was entirely reminiscent. “What I recall is that even if I had
condoned--that evening--her deception of _me_ in my folly, I still
loathed, for my friend’s sake, her practical joke on poor John.”
Lady Sandgate indulged in the shrug conciliatory. “It was your very
complaint that your own appeal to her _became_ an appeal from herself.”
“Yes,” he returned, so well he remembered, “she was about as civil to
me then--picking a quarrel with me on such a trumped-up ground!--as that
devil 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 with
weight; but what she in fact brought out was only: “I see you’re right
about it: I must let her speak for herself.”
“That I shall greatly prefer to her speaking--as she did so
extraordinarily, out of the blue, at Dedborough, upon my honour--for the
wonderful friends she picks up: the picture-man introduced by her (what
was 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’s
not able to be quite so thick with!”
If Lady Sandgate winced at that vain dream she managed not to betray
it, and she had, in any embarrassment on this matter, the support, as we
know, of her own tried policy. “She leads her life under this roof
very much as under yours; and she’s not of an age, remember, for me
to pretend either to watch her movements or to control her contacts.”
Leaving him however thus to perform his pleasure the charming woman had
before she went an abrupt change of tone. “Whatever your relations with
others, 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 of
course a comfort--or would be if you understood.”
“Ah,” she submissively sighed, “if I don’t always ‘understand’ a spirit
so much higher than mine and a situation so much more complicated,
certainly, I at least always defer, I at least always--well, what can I
say 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 his
preoccupations, from a tender passage; but he let her take his left
hand. “So I feel!” he was, however, kind enough to answer.
“Do feel!” she returned with much concentration. She raised the hand
to her pressed lips, dropped it and with a rich “Good-bye!” reached the
threshold 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 about
for a match. But something else occurred to him. “You must come to
Victoria.”
“Rather!” she said with intensity; and with that she passed away.