The Outcry: -1911

Lord John was already all there. 'Definitely, yes, of your settling the equivalent on Lady Grace.'

'And what do you call the equivalent of twelve thousand?'

'Why, tacked on to a value so great and so charming as Lady Grace herself, I dare say such a sum as nine or ten would serve.'

'And where the mischief, if you please, at this highly inconvenient time, am I to pick up nine or ten thousand?'

Lord John declined, with a smiling, a fairly irritating eye for his friend's general resources, to consider that question seriously. 'Surely you can have no difficulty whatever—!'

'Why not?—when you can see for yourself that I've had this year to let poor dear old Hill Street! Do you call it the moment for me to have liked to see myself all but cajoled into planking down even such a matter as the very much lower figure of Kitty's horrid incubus?'

'Ah, but the inducement and the quid pro quo,' Lord John brightly indicated, 'are here much greater! In the case you speak of you will only have removed the incubus—which, I grant you, she must and you must feel as horrid. In this other you pacify Lady Imber and marry Lady Grace: marry her to a man who has set his heart on her and of whom she has just expressed—to himself—a very kind and very high opinion.'

'She has expressed a very high opinion of you?'—Lord Theign scarce glowed with credulity.

But the younger man held his ground. 'She has told me she thoroughly likes me and that—though a fellow feels an ass repeating such things—she thinks me perfectly charming.'

'A tremendous creature, eh, all round? Then,' said Lord Theign, 'what does she want more?'

'She very possibly wants nothing—but I'm to that beastly degree, you see,' his visitor patiently explained, 'in the cleft stick of my fearfully positive mother's wants. Those are her 'terms,' and I don't mind saying that they're most disagreeable to me—I quite hate 'em: there! Only I think it makes a jolly difference that I wouldn't touch 'em with a long pole if my personal feeling—in respect to Lady Grace—wasn't so immensely enlisted.'

'I assure you I'd chuck 'em out of window, my boy, if I didn't believe you'd be really good to her,' Lord Theign returned with the properest spirit.

It only encouraged his companion. 'You will just tell her then, now and here, how good you honestly believe I shall be?'

This appeal required a moment—a longer look at him. 'You truly hold that that friendly guarantee, backed by my parental weight, will do your job?'

'That's the conviction I entertain.'

Lord Theign thought again. 'Well, even if your conviction's just, that still doesn't tell me into which of my very empty pockets it will be of the least use for me to fumble.'

'Oh,' Lord John laughed, 'when a man has such a tremendous assortment of breeches—!' He pulled up, however, as, in his motion, his eye caught the great vista of the open rooms. 'If it's a question of pockets—and what's in 'em—here precisely is my man!' This personage had come back from his tour of observation and was now, on the threshold of the hall, exhibited to Lord Theign as well. Lord John's welcome was warm. 'I've had awfully to fail you, Mr. Bender, but I was on the point of joining you. Let me, however, still better, introduce you to our host.'

VII

Mr. Bender indeed, formidably advancing, scarce had use for this assistance. 'Happy to meet you—especially in your beautiful home, Lord Theign.' To which he added while the master of Dedborough stood good-humouredly passive to his approach: 'I've been round, by your kind permission and the light of nature, and haven't required support; though if I had there's a gentleman there who seemed prepared to allow me any amount.' Mr. Bender, out of his abundance, evoked as by a suggestive hand this contributory figure. 'A young, spare, nervous gentleman with eye-glasses—I guess he's an author. A friend of yours too?' he asked of Lord John.

The answer was prompt and emphatic. 'No, the gentleman is no friend at all of mine, Mr. Bender.'

'A friend of my daughter's,' Lord Theign easily explained. 'I hope they're looking after him.'

'Oh, they took care he had tea and bread and butter to any extent; and were so good as to move something,' Mr. Bender conscientiously added, 'so that he could get up on a chair and see straight into the Moretto.'

This was a touch, however, that appeared to affect Lord John unfavourably. 'Up on a chair? I say!'

Mr. Bender took another view. 'Why, I got right up myself—a little more and I'd almost have begun to paw it! He got me quite interested'—the proprietor of the picture would perhaps care to know—'in that Moretto.' And it was on these lines that Mr. Bender continued to advance. 'I take it that your biggest value, however, Lord Theign, is your splendid Sir Joshua. Our friend there has a great deal to say about that too—but it didn't lead to our moving any more furniture.' On which he paused as to enjoy, with a show of his fine teeth, his host's reassurance. 'It has yet, my impression of that picture, sir, led to something else. Are you prepared, Lord Theign, to entertain a proposition?'

Lord Theign met Mr. Bender's eyes while this inquirer left these few portentous words to speak for themselves. 'To the effect that I part to you with 'The Beautiful Duchess of Waterbridge'? No, Mr. Bender, such a proposition would leave me intensely cold.'

Lord John had meanwhile had a more headlong cry. 'My dear Bender, I envy you!'

'I guess you don't envy me,' his friend serenely replied, 'as much as I envy Lord Theign.' And then while Mr. Bender and the latter continued to face each other searchingly and firmly: 'What I allude to is an overture of a strong and simple stamp—such as perhaps would shed a softer light on the difficulties raised by association and attachment. I've had some experience of first shocks, and I'd be glad to meet you as man to man.'

Mr. Bender was, quite clearly, all genial and all sincere; he intended no irony and used, consciously, no great freedom. Lord Theign, not less evidently, saw this, and it permitted him amusement. 'As rich man to poor man is how I'm to understand it? For me to meet you,' he added, 'I should have to be tempted—and I'm not even temptable. So there we are,' he blandly smiled.

His blandness appeared even for a moment to set an example to Lord John. ''The Beautiful Duchess of