The Outcry: -1911

''Only'?' she flushed—'when I've given the picture up?'

'Ah,' Hugh cried, 'I don't care a hang for the picture!' And then as she let him, closer, close to her with this, possess himself of her hands: 'We both only care, don't we, that we're given to each other thus? We both only care, don't we, that nothing can keep us apart?'

'Oh, if you've forgiven me—!' she sighed into his fond face.

'Why, since you gave the thing up for me,' he pleadingly laughed, 'it isn't as if you had given me up——!'

'For anything, anything? Ah never, never!' she breathed.

'Then why aren't we all right?'

'Well, if you will——!'

'Oh for ever and ever and ever!'—and with this ardent cry of his devotion his arms closed in their strength and she was clasped to his breast and to his lips.

The next moment, however, she had checked him with the warning 'Amy Sandgate!'—as if she had heard their hostess enter the other room. Lady Sand-gate was in fact almost already upon them—their disjunction had scarce been effected and she had reached the nearer threshold. They had at once put the widest space possible between them—a little of the flurry of which transaction agitated doubtless their clutch at composure. They gave back a shade awkwardly and consciously, on one side and the other, the speculative though gracious attention she for a few moments made them and their recent intimate relation the subject of; from all of which indeed Lady Grace sought and found cover in a prompt and responsible address to Hugh. 'Mustn't you go without more delay to Clifford Street?'

He came back to it all alert 'At once!' He had recovered his hat and reached the other door, whence he gesticulated farewell to the elder lady. 'Please pardon me'—and he disappeared.

Lady Sandgate hereupon stood for a little silently confronted with the girl. 'Have you freedom of mind for the fact that your father's suddenly at hand?'

'He has come back?'—Lady Grace was sharply struck.

'He arrives this afternoon and appears to go straight to Kitty—according to a wire that I find downstairs on coming back late from my luncheon. He has returned with a rush—as,' said his correspondent in the elation of triumph, 'I was sure he would!'

Her young friend was more at sea. 'Brought back, you mean, by the outcry—even though he so hates it?'

But she was more and more all lucidity—save in so far as she was now almost all authority. 'Ah, hating still more to seem afraid, he has come back to face the music!'

Lady Grace, turning away as in vague despair for the manner in which the music might affect him, yet wheeled about again, after thought, to a positive recognition and even to quite an inconsequent pride. 'Yes—that's dear old father!'

And what was Lady Sandgate moreover but mistress now of the subject? 'At the point the row has reached he couldn't stand it another day; so he has thrown up his cure and—lest we should oppose him!—not even announced his start.'

'Well,' her companion returned, 'now that I've done it all I shall never oppose him again!'

Lady Sandgate appeared to show herself as still under the impression she might have received on entering. 'He'll only oppose you!'

'If he does,' said Lady Grace, 'we're at present two to bear it.'

'Heaven save us then'—the elder woman was quick, was even cordial, for the sense of this—'your good friend is clever!'

Lady Grace honoured the remark. 'Mr. Crim-ble's remarkably clever.'

'And you've arranged——?'

'We haven't arranged—but we've understood. So that, dear Amy, if you understand —!' Lady Grace paused, for Gotch had come in from the hall.

'His lordship has arrived?' his mistress immediately put to him.

'No, my lady, but Lord John has—to know if he's expected here, and in that case, by your ladyship's leave, to come up.'

Her ladyship turned to the girl. 'May Lord John—as we do await your father—come up?'

'As suits you, please!'

'He may come up,' said Lady Sandgate to Gotch. 'His lordship's expected.' She had a pause till they were alone again, when she went on to her companion: 'You asked me just now if I understood. Well—I do understand!'

Lady Grace, with Gotch's withdrawal, which left the door open, had reached the passage to the other room. 'Then you'll excuse me!'—she made her escape.

II

Lord John, reannounced the next instant from the nearest quarter and quite waiving salutations, left no doubt of the high pitch of his eagerness and tension as soon as the door had closed behind him. 'What on earth then do you suppose he has come back to do—?' To which he added while his hostess's gesture impatiently disclaimed conjecture: 'Because when a fellow really finds himself the centre of a cyclone——!'

'Isn't it just at the centre,' she interrupted, 'that you keep remarkably still, and only in the suburbs that you feel the rage? I count on dear Theign's doing nothing in the least foolish—!'

'Ah, but he can't have chucked everything for nothing,' Lord John sharply returned; 'and wherever you place