If the divine Hortense ruled his Majesty the King that year, her sway
spread itself over the majority of those ambitious gentlemen who were in
quest of “place” and plunder. When women exploited the state, and burst
the bubble of a reputation with a kiss, politicians baited their
interests with some new “beauty,” and pinned their petitions to the
flounce of a petticoat.
Castlemaine had faded into France; Portsmouth watched from behind a
cloud; even the irrepressible Nell had prophesied the splendor of the
Mancini’s conquest. Hortense had landed at Torbay, and, like the
exquisite romanticist that she was, had ridden up to London in man’s
attire with seven servants, a maid, and a black boy in attendance. What
was of more significance, she had ridden at a canter into the august
heart of Whitehall. The palace of St. James had held her for a season,
till the Duke of York, with commendable brotherly discretion, had
purchased Lord Windsor’s house for her in the park, that such a
brilliant might shine upon them from a fitting setting.
There was a fascination in the fact that Cardinal Mazarin should have
possessed such a sheaf of adventurous nieces. They were all beautiful,
all romantically rebellious, all deliciously feminine. It was impossible
not to fall in love with them, and often impossible not to forget the
intoxication, for none of the Cardinal’s kinswomen were mere sentimental
fools. As for Hortense, she was a woman for whom a man might gamble away
his soul, simply because she looked at him with those black, roguish,
yet shrewd eyes of hers and made him feel that she was a desire beyond
his reach.
The incarnation of all womanly mystery, her beauty seemed to have stolen
some singular inspiration from twenty different types. A Greek symmetry
softened by a sensuous suppleness; the look of the gazelle, and yet of
the falcon; the stateliness of the great lady torn aside on occasions by
the nude audacity of a laughing Bacchic girl. Her sumptuousness made a
man’s glance drop instinctively to her bosom and watch the drawing of
her breath. There was sheer magic about her, fire in the blood, color in
the mind. When she entered a room the men looked at her, simply because
they could not help but look.
As my Lord Gore had said, “there was a merry heavenly devil in
Hortense.” She loved youth and all the glamour of its irresponsible
vitality, and would rather have seen some buffooning trick played upon a
bishop than have listened to the most eloquent of sermons. For she
herself was vital, magnetic, filled with all genius of sex. A mere
glance at her enriched the consciousness with visions, the flush of
sunsets, the heart of a rose, the redness of wine, the white curve of a
woman’s throat, moonlight and music, bridal casements opening upon foam.
My Lord of Gore heard the laughter in the great salon, even while the
Mancini’s footman in red and gold was taking his cane and hat. There was
nothing autumnal in Hortense’s house. Old men left their gout and their
growls behind them on the staircase, for the exquisite art of fooling
was a thing to be cherished and enjoyed.
The great salon had the brilliancy of color of a rose-garden in June.
The brown floor reflected everything like a pool of woodland water that
turns noonday into something vague and mystical. It caught the gleam of
a satin slipper and threw it back with the imitative rendering of the
gliding body of a fish. Like the villas of Pompeii, with its painted
walls and ceilings, this salon enclosed sunny worldliness and
picturesque realities. Its inmates were all sufficiently happy to be
able to forget to analyze the nature of their sensations.
“Ready—ready all. Go!”
My lord paused in the doorway to watch an improvised chariot-race that
offered any gentleman the chance of laying a wager. Three gallants had
been harnessed with sashes to as many chairs, and in each chair sat a
lady. Twice up and down the polished floor, with a turn at each end, and
a forfeit for upsetting. It was much like a great Christmas
romping-party for children.
A youth in blue satin with a fair-haired girl driving him came in an
easy first. The other two chariots had collided at the last turn, with
some slight damage to the furniture, and to the delight of the
spectators. She who had driven the blue boy to victory frisked out
joyfully, and performed a _pas seul_ in the middle of the room.
“Bravo! bravo!”
“Hortense, I have won my necklace.”
“Thanks, madam, to Tearing Tom.”
One of the fallen gallants stood rubbing a bruised shin. He was a slim
little fop with a weak face that pretended toward impudence, and a
name—even Sir Marmaduke Thibthorp—that suited his personality.
“I protest. We were overweighted—”
The lady whom he had overturned retorted with an unequivocal “Sir!”
My Lord Gore, with the genius of an opportunist, introduced his wit as a
fitting climax.
“The gibe may seem overstrained,” he said, flicking a lace ruffle, “but
surely the gentleman who claims to have been overweighted is hopelessly
under-calved.”
Nor was the joke visible till my lord pointed whimsically to Thibthorp’s
very ascetic shanks. Whereat they all laughed, more for the love of
ridicule than out of curtesy to my lord’s wit.
Hortense herself sat at one of the windows watching the youngsters at
their romps with the air of a laughing philosopher, whose mature age of
nine-and-twenty constituted her a fitting confidante either for children
or for cynics. She was dressed in some brown stuff that shone with a
reddish iridescence. The dress was cut low at the throat, so low as to
show the white breadth of her bosom. A chain of pearls was woven to and
fro amid the black masses of her hair.
My Lord Gore crossed the room to her and kissed her hand. They were very
good friends were my lord and Hortense. Something more tangible than
sentimental tendencies had drawn them together. Their worldly ambitions
were identical; the petticoat and the periwig were allied in their
campaign against the amiable idiosyncrasies of the King.
“Pardon me, but what a public-spirited woman I always find in you.”
He stood beside her chair, looking down at her, and at the lace that
filled her bosom.
“And you, my friend?”
“I come to enjoy perpetual rejuvenescence, and to learn to live in the
sun rather than in a fog of philosophy that gives us little but cold
feet and swollen heads.”
She looked up at him and laughed. And Hortense’s laugh had a delightful
audacity that rallied the world upon its dulness.
“They enjoy themselves, these children; they romp, chatter, make a
noise; I never allow them to quarrel. I try to teach them that there is
one folly to be condemned, the folly of suffering ourselves to lose our
youth.”
My lord’s eyes were fixed on the young spark, Tom Temple, who was
burlesquing a Spanish dance in the middle of the salon.
“We are always in danger of losing the art of make-believe.”
“You English are so serious, so grim.”
“Say, rather—selfish.”
“Is it not often the same thing?”
“Assuredly.”
“The world is only a great puppet-show; one of your playwriters has said
as much. We can all see the fun, even though we remain in the crowd. But
you English, you set your teeth, you push and fight; you must be in the
front, or nothing will content you. You make yourselves sullen in
struggling for your pleasures, while every one else is laughing, perhaps
at you.”
My lord bowed.
“I think you wrong the one enlightened spot in the kingdom,
madam—Whitehall. We must petition his Majesty to order Sir Christopher
to build you an academy, where we can institute you a new Hypatia. But I
gather that your philosophy would not end in oyster shells. For the
rest—I have a favor to ask.”
“I am listening.”
“Suffer me to introduce a very dull virgin into your atmosphere. I want
to convert her. She has a conscience.”
Hortense’s eyes met his frankly.
“So have I, my friend.”
“I do not question it. But the child I speak of has not learned to
laugh.”
“Deplorable!”
“She is a tax in sulkiness upon her mother. The poor woman is weary of
living with a corpse. In my humanity—I remembered you.”
“Bring her to me.”
“We shall be your debtors.”
“At least—I will tell you whether she will ever laugh. What mischief
have we brewing now?”
Tom Temple had bethought himself of some fresh piece of boyish
buffoonery, in which the girl whom he had drawn to victory in the
chariot-race had joined him. It was nothing more complex than a game of
double blind-man’s buff. The furniture was pushed aside into corners,
and the salon prepared for a lively chase.
“Hortense, Hortense, come and play!”
It was little Anne of Sussex, Castlemaine’s child, whisking a scarf in
one hand, while she held her skirts up with the other.
“Tom Temple and I are to be blind first. I am to catch the men, he—the
ladies.”
Lord Gore made her a grand obeisance.
“I will stand wilfully in the middle of the room, madam, and be caught.”
“Then you will have to give me three pairs of gloves. But you are too
large, my lord; we should always be catching you.”
“Like a leviathan in a fish-pond, eh?”
“Or an elephant in a parlor. Bind my eyes up, Hortense, and please pin
up my skirts.”
The Mancini humored her.
“Are you ready, Tom?”
“At your command,” said the youth, whom a friend had blindfolded.
“Turn me, Hortense; one, two, three. Now—have at all of you. If I catch
you—Tom—cry carrots.”
My lord and Hortense stepped back toward the window to watch the fun.
“It is just like the marriage market,” said she.
“Catch what you can,” he retorted, “and find out what sort of thing it
is—afterward.”
There was a great deal of scampering and laughing, of creeping into
corners and huddling against walls. In the very glory of a stampede,
when Tom Temple had sailed straight with his arms spread for a bunch of
girls, the salon door opened, and a servant announced:
“My Lord Sussex.”
The dramatic humor of the moment was missed by all save Hortense and
Lord Gore, so briskly and indiscriminately went the chase. My lord
pursed up his lips and whistled with a significant lifting of the
eyebrows. Hortense stifled a laugh.
Thomas Lennard, Lord Dacre, Earl of Sussex, was a prim aristocrat with
very stately prejudices against fashionable horse-play. Moreover, he had
one of those jealous and egotistical temperaments that persuades a man
to believe that the woman whom he had honored with marriage should
henceforth sit meekly at his feet—and play the mirror to his majesty.
He stood on the threshold, watching the whirligig of youth with the cold
wrath of a man who had come with the full expectation of being offended.
And to add to the irony of the moment, my Lady Anne came doubling down
the room in close pursuit of a couple of men. She made her capture not
three yards from her husband’s person, and made it gamely—with both
arms round the neck of Sir Marmaduke Thibthorp of the thin shanks.
She whipped off the bandage with a breathless laugh.
“Gemini—but it’s Duke Thibthorp!”
The gallant, whose back was toward the door, offered a mouth, and caught
his captor by the wrists.
“Forfeit, forfeit! A pledge—!”
Sudden silence had fallen on the room, to be followed by indiscriminate
and half-smothered giggling. My Lady Dacre’s face betrayed blank
consternation.
“Let me go—”
“Not for—”
“Let me go, fool.”
He of the thin shanks imagined that he was amusing the salon with his
waggery till a hand fastened upon his collar. Tom Temple, still
blissfully blind, came careering along one wall, and added emphasis to
the climax by coming down with a crash over a three-legged stool.
“I shall deem it a curtesy, sir, if you will release Lady Dacre’s
wrists.”
Thomas Lennard’s face had the cold fury of a blizzard. Yet he was
utterly polite. The gallant whom he had taken by the collar had twisted
round, and was staring with ludicrous vacuity into my lord’s eyes.
Stephen Gore watched the drama with an expression of angelic
satisfaction.
“Hortense, my friend, let me see you stop a quarrel.”
She had moved forward from the window with all the atmosphere of the Sun
King’s court.
“Pardon me, my lord. Your hand should be at my throat—if—you are
offended.”
The husband still had a firm hold of Marmaduke Thibthorp, and was
looking at him as though undecided whether it would be dignified to drop
the fop down the stairs. The aristocratic apathy in him triumphed. He
swept the youth aside, and with a curt bow to his wife, offered her his
arm.
“Come. Madam, I wish you a boisterous evening.”
His young wife had hesitated, with a whimsical grimace in the direction
of Hortense.
“Oh, what a sermon!”
The Italian’s eyes met those of Lord Dacre. It was as though they
challenged each other in their influence over the child.
“If my Lord Dacre will stay with us, I myself will put on the scarf. And
perhaps my Lord Gore—here—”
The leviathan bowed.
“I will flounder—most biblically.”
The Lady Anne giggled, and then glanced furtively at her husband’s face.
“A thousand thanks. My Lord Gore should delight even the psalmist. But
my coach is waiting. I wish you no broken furniture. Anne—come.”
There was a short, pregnant silence when he had departed with his
child-wife on his arm. Stephen Gore shrugged his shoulders and smiled at
Hortense.
“Most serious of swains! Oh, sage Solomon, who would grudge him the
responsibility of taming even one wife!”
“Alas, another unfortunate who has not learned to laugh.”
Sir Marmaduke Thibthorp was standing sheepishly beside the door,
striving to look amused.
“Such is fate,” he giggled.
“And such is a stool!” quoth Thomas Temple, sticking out a leg with a
blotch of blood on his stocking.
My Lord Gore took leave of Hortense after talking with her a moment
alone by the window.
“Bring her to me, my friend,” she said, as he made his bow.
“If you cannot cure her—”
“Ah, well—we shall see.”
He was crossing the park when a servant met him and handed him a note.
It was sealed with pink wax and smelled of ambergris. My lord opened it
as he strolled under the trees.
“I would see you soon. Jael has been of use to me.”
“A. P.”
V
A ship’s boat came up the river with half a dozen brown fellows
tugging at the oars, their dark skins and the patched picturesqueness of
their gaudy-colored shirts giving them something of the air of a
boat-load of buccaneers with gayly kerchiefed heads, ringed ears, and
belts full of pistols. A man in a soiled red coat, with remnants of lace
hanging to the cuffs, sat in the stern-sheets, his sword across his
knees, and beside him on the gunwale squatted a boy whose cheeky
sparrow’s face stared out from a tangle of crisp fair hair.
The man in the red coat looked even more brown and picturesque than the
seamen at the oars. He wore no wig under his battered beaver, and his
own black hair looked as though it had not been barbered for six months.
His shoes had lost their buckles, and the stocking of his right leg
showed a hole the size of a guinea above the heel.
“Three more strokes—and easy—lads.”
“Right, capt’n.”
“Let her run now; in with the bow sweeps.”
They had passed the Savoy, and drawn close in toward Charing Steps, with
a west wind sending the water slapping against the planking. The man in
the red coat held the tiller, and let the boat glide in, while the
seamen shipped their oars. The boat’s nose rubbed against the stone
facing of the steps, while a brown hand or two grabbed at the
mooring-rings. The boy on the gunwale was the first to leap ashore.
A number of watermen lounging about the steps were staring at the boat
and its crew, and exchanging opinions thereon with more candor than
curtesy. The sea-captain, standing in the stern-sheets, buckled his
sword to a faded baldric, callous to any criticism that might be
lavished on him by the river-side sots.
“Good-luck to you, capt’n.”
“You won’t forget us, sir.”
“We’ll follow you round Cape Horn again for a fight.”
The man in the red coat looked down at the brown faces along the boat
that were turned to him with a species of watchful, dog-like alertness.
“I shall have my flag flying in a month,” he said; “men sha’n’t rot down
at Deptford—the devil knows that. We have our tallies to count in the
South, eh, and Jasper shall have a long caronado to squint along.
Good-luck to you, lads. Here’s the end of the stocking. I wish it were
deeper.”
He tossed a purse to a grizzled old giant who was leaning upon his oar.
The man picked it up, looked at it lovingly a moment, and then glanced
over his shoulder at the men behind him.
“No dirty dog’s tricks here,” growled one.
“There’s a gold piece or two for ye,” said another, slapping his belt.
The giant stretched out a great fist with the purse in it.
“Maybe you’ll be selling the little frigate, capt’n; we can knock
along—”
The man in the red coat looked him straight in the eyes.
“Damnation, Jasper, I owe you all your pay—yet. Pocket it for beer
money.”
“Drink your last guinea, capt’n, not me!”
“Why, man, I can get a bagful for the asking—in an hour. And, look you
all, stand by down at ‘The Eight Bells’ to-morrow. I’ll pay every man of
you before noon.”
The watermen above had been listening to this dialogue with ribald
cynicism.
“Holy Moses,” said one, “here’s a boat-load of saints!”
“Throw it up here, mate, we ain’t shy of the dross.”
The captain had climbed the steps, with the boy beside him. But old
Jasper, standing up in the boat with his oar held like a pike, turned
his sea-eagle’s face toward the gentry on the causeway.
“Squeak, ye land-rats. By God’s death, you’ve never seen the inside of a
Barbary prison. If you were men you’d take your hat off to the capt’n.
But being land-gaffers, you’re all mud-muck and tallow. Shove her off,
mates, or I’ll be smashing some chicken’s stilts with my oar.”
The loungers jeered him valiantly as the bow sweeps churned foam, and
the boat, gathering weigh, swung out into the river.
“Look at their great mouths,” said the sea-wolf, grimly; “when we want
our bilge emptying we’ll send for ’em to have a drink.”
Meanwhile the man in the red coat and the boy had passed up the passage
from the river in the direction of Charing Cross, the shabbiness of
their raiment flattering the curiosity of the passers-by. The man in the
red coat appeared wholly at his ease. As for the boy, he was ready to
spread his fingers at the whole town on the very first provocation. Even
the fact that he had a rent in his breeches that suffered a certain
portion of his underlinen to protrude did not humble his
self-satisfaction.
The sea-captain, who had been walking with his chin in the air, glanced
down suddenly at the boy beside him.
“How are the ‘stores,’ Sparkin, my lad?”
“Getting low in the hold, sir.”
“We will put in and replenish.”
The boy gave a greedy twinkle.
“Hallo! I thought I told Jasper to patch you up with a piece of
sail-cloth?”
Sparkin did not betray any self-conscious cowardice.
“He was worse off, captain.”
“Poor devil!” And the man in the red coat laughed.
They turned into “The Three Tuns” at Charing Cross, the sea-captain
looking more like a Whitefriars’ bully than a gentleman adventurer. Two
comfortable citizens gathered up the skirts of their coats and edged
away sourly when the new-comers sat down next them at a table. The
captain remarked their neighborly caution, and smiled.
“Good-day, gentlemen. We embarrass you, perhaps?”
There was a humorous grimness about his mouth that carried conviction.
“Not at all, sir, not at all,” said the larger of the twain, poised
between propitiation and distrust.
“We are not Scotch, sir, so you will catch nothing.”
They dined in silence, the boy’s animation divided between his plate and
his surroundings, while the man in the red coat watched him with the air
of one who has an abundant past to feed his thoughts. His neighbors cast
curious momentary glances at him from time to time, but having once
spoken he appeared to have forgotten their existence. They had but to
look beneath the superficial shabbiness to see that the man was of some
standing in the world. He had that gift of remaining statuesquely
silent, that poise that suggests power. The brown, resolute face had the
comeliness of courage. Of no great stature, his sturdy, hollow-backed
figure betrayed strength to those who could distinguish between fat and
muscle.
The boy’s appetite reached impotence at last. The man in the red coat
beckoned to the servant, paid his due with odd small change routed out
of every pocket, and with a curt bow to his neighbors walked out into
the street.
He made his way toward St. James’s, and paused in the street of that
same name, before a big house with a pompous portico. A flight of steps
led up to the great door.
“Run up—and knock.”
The boy obeyed, his breeches bringing a smile to the sea-captain’s face
as he waited unconcernedly on the sidewalk.
“Don’t mind your knuckles, my lad.”
And Sparkin hammered as though he were sounding the ship’s bell.
A servant in livery opened the door and looked down at the boy with the
air of a bully scenting a beggar. The man in the red coat listened to
the following dialogue:
“My Lord Gore’s house, this?”
“What d’you want at the front door?”
“Lord Gore’s house?”
“Oh—is it?”
“Well, is it, stupid?”
“Here, you skip it, you—”
The sea-captain interposed with a laugh curving his mouth. There was so
much significance in the fellow’s gospel of cloth.
“Wake up, Tom Richards!”
The footman’s eyes protruded. He stared down at the seaman with the air
of a superior being resenting and distrusting familiarity.
“Well, what d’you want?” And his glance added, “You shabby,
cutthroat-looking devil!”
The man in red ascended the steps, while the servant’s face receded inch
by inch, so that he resembled a discreet dog backing sulkily into his
kennel. He was about to clap the door to, when the captain pushed
Sparkin bodily into the breach.
“Richards, man, have you forgotten me?”
Sparkin’s head had taken the fellow well in the stomach, and the shock
may have accounted for the man’s vacant and astonished face.
“Is my lord in? Brisk up, man, and don’t judge the whole world by its
coat.”
“The Lord forgive me, sir!”
“Possibly He will, Richards.”
“I didn’t know you, Mr. John, sir, you’re so brown—and—”
“Shabby, Richards; say it, and have done. Is my lord in town?”
“Oh yes, sir. Won’t you come in and dine? There is a good joint of
roast, Mr. John, sir, and a barrel of oysters. My lord is at Lady
Purcell’s in Pall Mall.”
“Lady Anne Purcell’s?”
“Yes, Mr. John.”
He turned and walked down the steps, the footman marvelling at his
effrontery in wearing such dastardly clothes.
“Take the boy in, Richards.”
Richards and Master Sparkin regarded each other suspiciously.
“Give him a wash, and a new pair of breeches, if you can find a pair to
fit.”
“Yes, Mr. John; and your baggage, sir?”
“Lies somewhere in Barbary, Richards, so you need not trouble your head
about that.”
The whole episode so piqued the footman that he proceeded to lead the
boy in the direction of the kitchen quarters by the ear. Whereat,
Sparkin, who had already gauged the gentleman’s tonnage, fetched him a
valiant kick upon the shin, and broke loose with a grin of whole-hearted
scorn.
“You keep your hands to yourself, Tom Richards.”
The footman made a grab at the boy, but Sparkin was on the alert.
“Touch me, and I’ll dig my dirk into you.”
Mr. Richards reverted to that easier and safer weapon—the tongue.
“Didn’t Mr. John tell me to wash you, you little bundle of rags?”
Sparkin’s hand went to his belt.
“You touch me, and I’ll let your blood for you, Tom Richards. The Lord
forgive me, sir”—and he imitated the man’s voice—“you’d be learning
something if you went to sea with Captain Gore.”
“Oh, I should, should I!”
“The devil you would.”
“And you’d be teaching me, perhaps!” said the man in livery, with a
sententious sniff.
“’Twouldn’t be my business. They’d send you to the cook’s galley to
clean pots.”
While Sparkin was instilling obfuscated respect and caution into Tom
Richards, Captain John Gore made his way to Lady Purcell’s house. The
stare he met there was no more flattering than that which his father’s
servant had given him. A three days’ beard, no wig, a soiled coat, and a
moulting beaver were not calculated to conciliate menials.
“My Lord Gore is here?”
“What may your business be?”
He walked in over the servant’s toes.
“Tell my lord that Captain Gore is below.”
“Captain Gore, sir?”
The gentleman merely reiterated the order with a straight stare.
“Would you be pleased, sir, to walk into the garden.”
John Gore followed the fellow’s lead, amused at the caution that did not
intend to offer him the chance of pocketing anything of value in the
house. He was left pacing the gravel walks, with his red coat showing up
against the green of the grass.
John Gore had taken two turns up and down the garden when a girl came
out between the pillars of the music-room, and stood gazing at the
gentleman’s broad back with the impatient air of one who has been
cornered by a stranger. She drew back again, as though waiting her
opportunity to cross from the portico to the house without being
observed. Her chance came and she seized it, only to discover that the
garden door of the house was locked.
The man in the red coat turned and came down the path again. He caught
sight of the girl standing on the steps, bowed, and lifted his hat to
her.
“I am afraid you are locked out,” he said.
“Oh—”
“Your man did not like the look of me, I suppose, and wisely turned the
key in the lock. There seems nothing to be pocketed in the garden but a
few green peaches.”
They were looking straight into each other’s eyes. Who this sturdy,
shabby gentleman could be Barbara could not gather for the moment. Nor
was she pleased at being left there—at his mercy.
“You have forgotten me, Mistress Barbara,” he said.
She frowned slightly.
“My father, Lord Gore, is here, I believe.”
Her eyes flashed suddenly, and she colored.
“Oh—you are—”
“The boy who pulled your ribbons off—that day—at Sheen. You may
remember the incident,” and he bowed.
Barbara remembered it. There was a short pause.
“You have changed,” she said, curtly, glancing over her shoulder at the
glass panel in the door.
He passed a hand critically over his chin.
“Seemingly, in the heat of adventure. My father’s man took me for a
bully. I have been in England about five hours.”
They stood regarding each other in silence, the man puzzled by her
swarthy, sullen face, the girl conscious of a rush of embittered
memories. It was as though something out of the past had risen up before
her, something ignorant and unwelcome that might blunder any moment
against her sensitive reserve.
“I trust that Sir Lionel is hearty as ever?”
She seized the handle of the door and shook it.
“I wonder where that fool—Miles—”
“Pardon me, shall I shout?”
Barbara kept one shoulder turned toward him, her face, bleak and white,
reflected in the glass panel of the door.
“Oh—at last!”
There was the sound of a key turning in a lock. She pushed past the man
as he opened the door, leaving John Gore wondering what manner of
mischief three years had made in a girl’s temper.
In the parlor, with its panelling, its massive furniture, and great
fireplace filled with blue Dutch tiles, Anne Purcell and my Lord Gore
had been talking for above an hour. My lord was standing at a window in
his favorite attitude of philosophic stateliness. The lady’s face had an
impatient sharpness of expression that hinted that the man’s sympathy
had not sounded the deeps of her unrest.
“I tell you, Nan, that these—these possibilities—leave us where we
stood before. The girl may be a little touched in the head. Leave her to
Hortense; if she cannot tame her, well, there are other ways.”
Anne seemed less credulous—and more obstinate than he desired.
“I am not superstitious, but to think of the girl praying to those—I
tell you, Stephen, the thought of it makes me afraid. Thank Heaven, she
is praying—in the dark.”
“Tush—tush,” and he smiled down at her, “the girl is not quite human.
We understand her, you—and I. Yet you seem to lack that diplomatic
foresight, Nan, that sees in an enemy’s tricks—the very tools for one’s
own hand.”
She looked up at him blankly.
“No, I foresee nothing save that—betrayal.”
“Which, if it occurred, could be turned aside as easily as I snap my
fingers. There is but one person to be considered, and we must keep her
fat and contented.”
“Jael?”
“Yes; the woman is greedy; that simplifies everything. To-morrow, then,
you will come with me to the Mancini’s?”
“Oh—if it will help.”
“At least it can do no harm. Listen!”
They heard the footsteps of the servant climbing the stairs, and in ten
seconds my Lord Gore had the first news of his seafaring and unshaven
son.