THE narrative leaves Julian and Mercy for a while, and, ascending to the
upper regions of the house, follows the march of events in Lady Janet’s
room.
The maid had delivered her mistress’s note to Mercy, and had gone away
again on her second errand to Grace Roseberry in her boudoir. Lady Janet
was seated at her writing-table, waiting for the appearance of the woman
whom she had summoned to her presence. A single lamp diffused its mild
light over the books, pictures, and busts round her, leaving the further
end of the room, in which the bed was placed, almost lost in obscurity.
The works of art were all portraits; the books were all presentation
copies from the authors. It was Lady Janet’s fancy to associate her
bedroom with memorials of the various persons whom she had known in the
long course of her life--all of them more or less distinguished, most of
them, by this time, gathered with the dead.
She sat near her writing-table, lying back in her easy-chair--the living
realization of the picture which Julian’s description had drawn. Her
eyes were fixed on a photographic likeness of Mercy, which was so raised
upon a little gilt easel as to enable her to contemplate it under the
full light of the lamp. The bright, mobile old face was strangely and
sadly changed. The brow was fixed; the mouth was rigid; the whole face
would have been like a mask, molded in the hardest forms of passive
resistance and suppressed rage, but for the light and life still thrown
over it by the eyes. There was something unutterably touching in the
keen hungering tenderness of the look which they fixed on the portrait,
intensified by an underlying expression of fond and patient reproach.
The danger which Julian so wisely dreaded was in the rest of the face;
the love which he had so truly described was in the eyes alone. _They_
still spoke of the cruelly profaned affection which had been the one
immeasurable joy, the one inexhaustible hope of Lady Janet’s closing
life. The brow expressed nothing but her obstinate determination to
stand by the wreck of that joy, to rekindle the dead ashes of that hope.
The lips were only eloquent of her unflinching resolution to ignore the
hateful present and to save the sacred past. “My idol may be shattered,
but none of you shall know it. I stop the march of discovery; I
extinguish the light of truth. I am deaf to your words; am blind to your
proofs. At seventy years old, my idol is my life. It shall be my idol
still.”
The silence in the bedroom was broken by a murmuring of women’s voices
outside the door.
Lady Janet instantly raised herself in the chair and snatched the
photograph off the easel. She laid the portrait face downward, among
some papers on the table, then abruptly changed her mind, and hid it
among the thick folds of lace which clothed her neck and bosom. There
was a world of love in the action itself, and in the sudden softening of
the eyes which accompanied it. The next moment Lady Janet’s mask was on.
Any superficial observer who had seen her now would have said, “This is
a hard woman!”
The door was opened by the maid. Grace Roseberry entered the room.
She advanced rapidly, with a defiant assurance in her manner, and a
lofty carriage of her head. She sat down in the chair, to which Lady
Janet silently pointed, with a thump; she returned Lady Janet’s grave
bow with a nod and a smile. Every movement and every look of the little,
worn, white-faced, shabbily dressed woman expressed insolent triumph,
and said, as if in words, “My turn has come!”
“I am glad to wait on your ladyship,” she began, without giving Lady
Janet an opportunity of speaking first. “Indeed, I should have felt it
my duty to request an interview, if you had not sent your maid to invite
me up here.”
“You would have felt it your duty to request an interview?” Lady Janet
repeated, very quietly. “Why?”
The tone in which that one last word was spoken embarrassed Grace at
the outset. It established as great a distance between Lady Janet and
herself as if she had been lifted in her chair and conveyed bodily to
the other end of the room.
“I am surprised that your ladyship should not understand me,” she said,
struggling to conceal her confusion. “Especially after your kind offer
of your own boudoir.”
Lady Janet remained perfectly unmoved. “I do _not_ understand you,” she
answered, just as quietly as ever.
Grace’s temper came to her assistance. She recovered the assurance which
had marked her first appearance on the scene.
“In that case,” she resumed, “I must enter into particulars, in justice
to myself. I can place but one interpretation on the extraordinary
change in your ladyship’s behavior to me downstairs. The conduct of that
abominable woman has at last opened your eyes to the deception that has
been practiced on you. For some reason of your own, however, you
have not yet chosen to recognize me openly. In this painful position
something is due to my own self-respect. I cannot, and will not, permit
Mercy Merrick to claim the merit of restoring me to my proper place in
this house. After what I have suffered it is quite impossible for me to
endure that. I should have requested an interview (if you had not sent
for me) for the express purpose of claiming this person’s immediate
expulsion from the house. I claim it now as a proper concession to Me.
Whatever you or Mr. Julian Gray may do, _I_ will not tamely permit her
to exhibit herself as an interesting penitent. It is really a little too
much to hear this brazen adventuress appoint her own time for explaining
herself. It is too deliberately insulting to see her sail out of the
room--with a clergyman of the Church of England opening the door for
her--as if she was laying me under an obligation! I can forgive much,
Lady Janet--including the terms in which you thought it decent to order
me out of your house. I am quite willing to accept the offer of your
boudoir, as the expression on your part of a better frame of mind. But
even Christian Charity has its limits. The continued presence of that
wretch under your roof is, you will permit me to remark, not only a
monument of your own weakness, but a perfectly insufferable insult to
Me.”
There she stopped abruptly--not for want of words, but for want of a
listener.
Lady Janet was not even pretending to attend to her. Lady Janet, with a
deliberate rudeness entirely foreign to her usual habits, was composedly
busying herself in arranging the various papers scattered about the
table. Some she tied together with little morsels of string; some
she placed under paper-weights; some she deposited in the fantastic
pigeon-holes of a little Japanese cabinet--working with a placid
enjoyment of her own orderly occupation, and perfectly unaware, to all
outward appearance, that any second person was in the room. She looked
up, with her papers in both hands, when Grace stopped, and said,
quietly,
“Have you done?”
“Is your ladyship’s purpose in sending for me to treat me with studied
rudeness?” Grace retorted, angrily.
“My purpose in sending for you is to say something as soon as you will
allow me the opportunity.”
The impenetrable composure of that reply took Grace completely by
surprise. She had no retort ready. In sheer astonishment she waited
silently with her eyes riveted on the mistress of the house.
Lady Janet put down her papers, and settled herself comfortably in the
easy-chair, preparatory to opening the interview on her side.
“The little that I have to say to you,” she began, “may be said in a
question. Am I right in supposing that you have no present employment,
and that a little advance in money (delicately offered) would be very
acceptable to you?”
“Do you mean to insult me, Lady Janet?”
“Certainly not. I mean to ask you a question.”
“Your question is an insult.”
“My question is a kindness, if you will only understand it as it is
intended. I don’t complain of your not understanding it. I don’t even
hold you responsible for any one of the many breaches of good manners
which you have committed since you have been in this room. I was
honestly anxious to be of some service to you, and you have repelled my
advances. I am sorry. Let us drop the subject.”
Expressing herself in the most perfect temper in those terms, Lady Janet
resumed the arrangement of her papers, and became unconscious once more
of the presence of any second person in the room.
Grace opened her lips to reply with the utmost intemperance of an angry
woman, and thinking better of it, controlled herself. It was plainly
useless to take the violent way with Lady Janet Roy. Her age and her
social position were enough of themselves to repel any violence. She
evidently knew that, and trusted to it. Grace resolved to meet the enemy
on the neutral ground of politeness, as the most promising ground that
she could occupy under present circumstances.
“If I have said anything hasty, I beg to apologize to your ladyship,”
she began. “May I ask if your only object in sending for me was to
inquire into my pecuniary affairs, with a view to assisting me?”
“That,” said Lady Janet, “was my only object.”
“You had nothing to say to me on the subject of Mercy Merrick?”
“Nothing whatever. I am weary of hearing of Mercy Merrick. Have you any
more questions to ask me?”
“I have one more.”
“Yes?”
“I wish to ask your ladyship whether you propose to recognize me in the
presence of your household as the late Colonel Roseberry’s daughter?”
“I have already recognized you as a lady in embarrassed circumstances,
who has peculiar claims on my consideration and forbearance. If you wish
me to repeat those words in the presence of the servants (absurd as it
is), I am ready to comply with your request.”
Grace’s temper began to get the better of her prudent resolutions.
“Lady Janet!” she said; “this won’t do. I must request you to express
yourself plainly. You talk of my peculiar claims on your forbearance.
What claims do you mean?”
“It will be painful to both of us if we enter into details,” replied
Lady Janet. “Pray don’t let us enter into details.”
“I insist on it, madam.”
“Pray don’t insist on it.”
Grace was deaf to remonstrance.
“I ask you in plain words,” she went on, “do you acknowledge that you
have been deceived by an adventuress who has personated me? Do you mean
to restore me to my proper place in this house?”
Lady Janet returned to the arrangement of her papers.
“Does your ladyship refuse to listen to me?”
Lady Janet looked up from her papers as blandly as ever.
“If _you_ persist in returning to your delusion,” she said, “you will
oblige _me_ to persist in returning to my papers.”
“What is my delusion, if you please?”
“Your delusion is expressed in the questions you have just put to me.
Your delusion constitutes your peculiar claim on my forbearance. Nothing
you can say or do will shake my forbearance. When I first found you in
the dining-room, I acted most improperly; I lost my temper. I did worse;
I was foolish enough and imprudent enough to send for a police officer.
I owe you every possible atonement (afflicted as you are) for treating
you in that cruel manner. I offered you the use of my boudoir, as part
of my atonement. I sent for you, in the hope that you would allow me to
assist you, as part of my atonement. You may behave rudely to me, you
may speak in the most abusive terms of my adopted daughter; I will
submit to anything, as part of my atonement. So long as you abstain from
speaking on one painful subject, I will listen to you with the greatest
pleasure. Whenever you return to that subject I shall return to my
papers.”
Grace looked at Lady Janet with an evil smile.
“I begin to understand your ladyship,” she said. “You are ashamed
to acknowledge that you have been grossly imposed upon. Your only
alternative, of course, is to ignore everything that has happened. Pray
count on _my_ forbearance. I am not at all offended--I am merely amused.
It is not every day that a lady of high rank exhibits herself in such a
position as yours to an obscure woman like me. Your humane consideration
for me dates, I presume, from the time when your adopted daughter set
you the example, by ordering the police officer out of the room?”
Lady Janet’s composure was proof even against this assault on it. She
gravely accepted Grace’s inquiry as a question addressed to her in
perfect good faith.
“I am not at all surprised,” she replied, “to find that my adopted
daughter’s interference has exposed her to misrepresentation. She ought
to have remonstrated with me privately before she interfered. But she
has one fault--she is too impulsive. I have never, in all my experience,
met with such a warm-hearted person as she is. Always too considerate
of others; always too forgetful of herself! The mere appearance of the
police officer placed you in a situation to appeal to her compassion,
and her impulses carried her away as usual. My fault! All my fault!”
Grace changed her tone once more. She was quick enough to discern that
Lady Janet was a match for her with her own weapons.
“We have had enough of this,” she said. “It is time to be serious. Your
adopted daughter (as you call her) is Mercy Merrick, and you know it.”
Lady Janet returned to her papers.
“I am Grace Roseberry, whose name she has stolen, and you know _that_.”
Lady Janet went on with her papers.
Grace got up from her chair.
“I accept your silence, Lady Janet,” she said, “as an acknowledgment
of your deliberate resolution to suppress the truth. You are evidently
determined to receive the adventuress as the true woman; and you don’t
scruple to face the consequences of that proceeding, by pretending to my
face to believe that I am mad. I will not allow myself to be impudently
cheated out of my rights in this way. You will hear from me again madam,
when the Canadian mail arrives in England.”
She walked toward the door. This time Lady Janet answered, as readily
and as explicitly as it was possible to desire.
“I shall refuse to receive your letters,” she said.
Grace returned a few steps, threateningly.
“My letters shall be followed by my witnesses,” she proceeded.
“I shall refuse to receive your witnesses.”
“Refuse at your peril. I will appeal to the law.”
Lady Janet smiled.
“I don’t pretend to much knowledge of the subject,” she said; “but I
should be surprised indeed if I discovered that you had any claim on me
which the law could enforce. However, let us suppose that you _can_ set
the law in action. You know as well as I do that the only motive power
which can do that is--money. I am rich; fees, costs, and all the rest of
it are matters of no sort of consequence to me. May I ask if you are in
the same position?”
The question silenced Grace. So far as money was concerned, she was
literally at the end of her resources. Her only friends were friends in
Canada. After what she had said to him in the boudoir, it would be quite
useless to appeal to the sympathies of Julian Gray. In the pecuniary
sense, and in one word, she was absolutely incapable of gratifying
her own vindictive longings. And there sat the mistress of Mablethorpe
House, perfectly well aware of it.
Lady Janet pointed to the empty chair.
“Suppose you sit down again?” she suggested. “The course of our
interview seems to have brought us back to the question that I asked
you when you came into my room. Instead of threatening me with the law,
suppose you consider the propriety of permitting me to be of some use to
you. I am in the habit of assisting ladies in embarrassed circumstances,
and nobody knows of it but my steward--who keeps the accounts--and
myself. Once more, let me inquire if a little advance of the pecuniary
sort (delicately offered) would be acceptable to you?”
Grace returned slowly to the chair that she had left. She stood by it,
with one hand grasping the top rail, and with her eyes fixed in mocking
scrutiny on Lady Janet’s face.
“At last your ladyship shows your hand,” she said. “Hush-money!”
“You _will_ send me back to my papers,” rejoined Lady Janet. “How
obstinate you are!”
Grace’s hand closed tighter and tighter round the rail of the chair.
Without witnesses, without means, without so much as a refuge--thanks to
her own coarse cruelties of language and conduct--in the sympathies
of others, the sense of her isolation and her helplessness was almost
maddening at that final moment. A woman of finer sensibilities would
have instantly left the room. Grace’s impenetrably hard and narrow mind
impelled her to meet the emergency in a very different way. A last base
vengeance, to which Lady Janet had voluntarily exposed herself, was
still within her reach. “For the present,” she thought, “there is but
one way of being even with your ladyship. I can cost you as much as
possible.”
“Pray make some allowances for me,” she said. “I am not obstinate--I am
only a little awkward at matching the audacity of a lady of high rank.
I shall improve with practice. My own language is, as I am painfully
aware, only plain English. Permit me to withdraw it, and to substitute
yours. What advance is your ladyship (delicately) prepared to offer me?”
Lady Janet opened a drawer, and took out her check-book.
The moment of relief had come at last! The only question now left to
discuss was evidently the question of amount. Lady Janet considered a
little. The question of amount was (to her mind) in some sort a question
of conscience as well. Her love for Mercy and her loathing for Grace,
her horror of seeing her darling degraded and her affection profaned
by a public exposure, had hurried her--there was no disputing it--into
treating an injured woman harshly. Hateful as Grace Roseberry might be,
her father had left her, in his last moments, with Lady Janet’s full
concurrence, to Lady Janet’s care. But for Mercy she would have been
received at Mablethorpe House as Lady Janet’s companion, with a salary
of one hundred pounds a year. On the other hand, how long (with such a
temper as she had revealed) would Grace have remained in the service of
her protectress? She would probably have been dismissed in a few weeks,
with a year’s salary to compensate her, and with a recommendation to
some suitable employment. What would be a fair compensation now? Lady
Janet decided that five years’ salary immediately given, and future
assistance rendered if necessary, would represent a fit remembrance
of the late Colonel Roseberry’s claims, and a liberal pecuniary
acknowledgment of any harshness of treatment which Grace might have
sustained at her hands. At the same time, and for the further satisfying
of her own conscience, she determined to discover the sum which Grace
herself would consider sufficient by the simple process of making Grace
herself propose the terms.
“It is impossible for me to make you an offer,” she said, “for this
reason--your need of money will depend greatly on your future plans. I
am quite ignorant of your future plans.’’
“Perhaps your ladyship will kindly advise me?” said Grace, satirically.
“I cannot altogether undertake to advise you,” Lady Janet replied. “I
can only suppose that you will scarcely remain in England, where you
have no friends. Whether you go to law with me or not, you will surely
feel the necessity of communicating personally with your friends in
Canada. Am I right?”
Grace was quite quick enough to understand this as it was meant.
Properly interpreted, the answer signified--“If you take your
compensation in money, it is understood, as part of the bargain that you
don’t remain in England to annoy me.”
“Your ladyship is quite right,” she said. “I shall certainly not remain
in England. I shall consult my friends--and,” she added, mentally, “go
to law with you afterward, if I possibly can, with your own money!”
“You will return to Canada,” Lady Janet proceeded; “and your prospects
there will be, probably, a little uncertain at first. Taking this into
consideration, at what amount do you estimate, in your own mind, the
pecuniary assistance which you will require?”
“May I count on your ladyship’s, kindness to correct me if my own
ignorant calculations turn out to be wrong?” Grace asked, innocently.
Here again the words, properly interpreted, had a special signification
of their own: “It is stipulated, on my part, that I put myself up to
auction, and that my estimate shall be regulated by your ladyship’s
highest bid.” Thoroughly understanding the stipulation, Lady Janet
bowed, and waited gravely.
Gravely, on her side, Grace began.
“I am afraid I should want more than a hundred pounds,” she said.
Lady Janet made her first bid. “I think so too.”
“More, perhaps, than two hundred?”
Lady Janet made her second bid. “Probably.”
“More than three hundred? Four hundred? Five hundred?”
Lady Janet made her highest bid. “Five hundred pounds will do,” she
said.
In spite of herself, Grace’s rising color betrayed her ungovernable
excitement. From her earliest childhood she had been accustomed to see
shillings and sixpences carefully considered before they were parted
with. She had never known her father to possess so much as five golden
sovereigns at his own disposal (unencumbered by debt) in all her
experience of him. The atmosphere in which she had lived and breathed
was the all-stifling one of genteel poverty. There was something
horrible in the greedy eagerness of her eyes as they watched Lady Janet,
to see if she was really sufficiently in earnest to give away five
hundred pounds sterling with a stroke of her pen.
Lady Janet wrote the check in a few seconds, and pushed it across the
table.
Grace’s hungry eyes devoured the golden line, “Pay to myself or bearer
five hundred pounds,” and verified the signature beneath, “Janet
Roy.” Once sure of the money whenever she chose to take it, the native
meanness of her nature instantly asserted itself. She tossed her head,
and let the check lie on the table, with an overacted appearance of
caring very little whether she took it or not.
“Your ladyship is not to suppose that I snap at your check,” she said.
Lady Janet leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. The very sight
of Grace Roseberry sickened her. Her mind filled suddenly with the image
of Mercy. She longed to feast her eyes again on that grand beauty, to
fill her ears again with the melody of that gentle voice.
“I require time to consider--in justice to my own self-respect,” Grace
went on.
Lady Janet wearily made a sign, granting time to consider.
“Your ladyship’s boudoir is, I presume, still at my disposal?”
Lady Janet silently granted the boudoir.
“And your ladyship’s servants are at my orders, if I have occasion to
employ them?”
Lady Janet suddenly opened her eyes. “The whole household is at your
orders,” she cried, furiously. “Leave me!”
Grace was far from being offended. If anything, she was gratified--there
was a certain triumph in having stung Lady Janet into an open outbreak
of temper. She insisted forthwith on another condition.
“In the event of my deciding to receive the check,” she said, “I cannot,
consistently with my own self-respect, permit it to be delivered to me
otherwise than inclosed. Your ladyship will (if necessary) be so kind as
to inclose it. Good-evening.”
She sauntered to the door, looking from side to side, with an air of
supreme disparagement, at the priceless treasures of art which adorned
the walls. Her eyes dropped superciliously on the carpet (the design of
a famous French painter), as if her feet condescended in walking over
it. The audacity with which she had entered the room had been marked
enough; it shrank to nothing before the infinitely superior proportions
of the insolence with which she left it.
The instant the door was closed Lady Janet rose from her chair. Reckless
of the wintry chill in the outer air, she threw open one of the windows.
“Pah!” she exclaimed, with a shudder of disgust, “the very air of the
room is tainted by her!”
She returned to her chair. Her mood changed as she sat down again--her
heart was with Mercy once more. “Oh, my love!” she murmured “how low I
have stooped, how miserably I have degraded myself--and all for You!”
The bitterness of the retrospect was unendurable. The inbred force of
the woman’s nature took refuge from it in an outburst of defiance and
despair. “Whatever she has done, that wretch deserves it! Not a living
creature in this house shall say she has deceived me. She has _not_
deceived me--she loves me! What do I care whether she has given me her
true name or not! She has given me her true heart. What right had Julian
to play upon her feelings and pry into her secrets? My poor, tempted,
tortured child! I won’t hear her confession. Not another word shall she
say to any living creature. I am mistress--I will forbid it at once!”
She snatched a sheet of notepaper from the case; hesitated, and threw it
from her on the table. “Why not send for my darling?” she thought. “Why
write?” She hesitated once more, and resigned the idea. “No! I can’t
trust myself! I daren’t see her yet!”
She took up the sheet of paper again, and wrote her second message to
Mercy. This time the note began fondly with a familiar form of address.
“MY DEAR CHILD--I have had time to think and compose myself a little,
since I last wrote, requesting you to defer the explanation which you
had promised me. I already understand (and appreciate) the motives
which led you to interfere as you did downstairs, and I now ask you to
entirely abandon the explanation. It will, I am sure, be painful to
you (for reasons of your own into which I have no wish to inquire) to
produce the person of whom you spoke, and as you know already, I myself
am weary of hearing of her. Besides, there is really no need now for you
to explain anything. The stranger whose visits here have caused us so
much pain and anxiety will trouble us no more. She leaves England of
her own free will, after a conversation with me which has perfectly
succeeded in composing and satisfying her. Not a word more, my dear,
to me, or to my nephew, or to any other human creature, of what has
happened in the dining-room to-day. When we next meet, let it be
understood between us that the past is henceforth and forever _buried
to oblivion_. This is not only the earnest request--it is, if necessary,
the positive command, of your mother and friend,
“JANET ROY.
“P.S.--I shall find opportunities (before you leave your room) of
speaking separately to my nephew and to Horace Holmcroft. You need dread
no embarrassment, when you next meet them. I will not ask you to answer
my note in writing. Say yes to the maid who will bring it to you, and I
shall know we understand each other.”
After sealing the envelope which inclosed these lines, Lady Janet
addressed it, as usual, to “Miss Grace Roseberry.” She was just rising
to ring the bell, when the maid appeared with a message from the
boudoir. The woman’s tones and looks showed plainly that she had been
made the object of Grace’s insolent self-assertion as well as her
mistress.
“If you please, my lady, the person downstairs wishes--”
Lady Janet, frowning contemptuously, interrupted the message at the
outset. “I know what the person downstairs wishes. She has sent you for
a letter from me?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Anything more?”
“She has sent one of the men-servants, my lady, for a cab. If your
ladyship had only heard how she spoke to him!”
Lady Janet intimated by a sign that she would rather not hear. She at
once inclosed the check in an undirected envelope.
“Take that to her,” she said, “and then come back to me.”
Dismissing Grace Roseberry from all further consideration, Lady Janet
sat, with her letter to Mercy in her hand, reflecting on her position,
and on the efforts which it might still demand from her. Pursuing this
train of thought, it now occurred to her that accident might bring
Horace and Mercy together at any moment, and that, in Horace’s present
frame of mind, he would certainly insist on the very explanation which
it was the foremost interest of her life to suppress. The dread of this
disaster was in full possession of her when the maid returned.
“Where is Mr. Holmcroft?” she asked, the moment the woman entered the
room.
“I saw him open the library door, my lady, just now, on my way
upstairs.”
“Was he alone?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Go to him, and say I want to see him here immediately.”
The maid withdrew on her second errand. Lady Janet rose restlessly, and
closed the open window. Her impatient desire to make sure of Horace so
completely mastered her that she left her room, and met the woman in
the corridor on her return. Receiving Horace’s message of excuse, she
instantly sent back the peremptory rejoinder, “Say that he will oblige
me to go to him, if he persists in refusing to come to me. And, stay!”
she added, remembering the undelivered letter. “Send Miss Roseberry’s
maid here; I want her.”
Left alone again, Lady Janet paced once or twice up and down the
corridor--then grew suddenly weary of the sight of it, and went back to
her room. The two maids returned together. One of them, having announced
Horace’s submission, was dismissed. The other was sent to Mercy’s room
with Lady Janet’s letter. In a minute or two the messenger appeared
again, with the news that she had found the room empty.
“Have you any idea where Miss Roseberry is?”
“No, my lady.”
Lady Janet reflected for a moment. If Horace presented himself without
any needless delay, the plain inference would he that she had succeeded
in separating him from Mercy. If his appearance was suspiciously
deferred, she decided on personally searching for Mercy in the reception
rooms on the lower floor of the house.
“What have you done with the letter?” she asked.
“I left it on Miss Roseberry’s table, my lady.”
“Very well. Keep within hearing of the bell, in case I want you again.”
Another minute brought Lady Janet’s suspense to an end. She heard the
welcome sound of a knock at her door from a man’s hand. Horace hurriedly
entered the room.
“What is it you want with me, Lady Janet?” he inquired, not very
graciously.
“Sit down, Horace, and you shall hear.”
Horace did not accept the invitation. “Excuse me,” he said, “if I
mention that I am rather in a hurry.”
“Why are you in a hurry?”
“I have reasons for wishing to see Grace as soon as possible.”
“And _I_ have reasons,” Lady Janet rejoined, “for wishing to speak to
you about Grace before you see her; serious reasons. Sit down.”
Horace started. “Serious reasons?” he repeated. “You surprise me.”
“I shall surprise you still more before I have done.”
Their eyes met as Lady Janet answered in those terms. Horace observed
signs of agitation in her, which he now noticed for the first time. His
face darkened with an expression of sullen distrust--and he took the
chair in silence.