The Outcry: -1911

Lady Sandgate fairly jumped at it. 'Your blessed cheque-book. Lay it on my desk,' she said to Gotch, though waiting till he had departed again before she resumed to her visitor: 'Mightn't we conclude before he comes?'

'The Prince?' Mr. Bender's imagination had strayed from the ground to which she sought to lead it back, and it but vaguely retraced its steps. 'Will he want your great-grandmother?'

'Well, he may when he sees her!' Lady Sandgate laughed. 'And Theign, when he comes, will give you on his own question, I feel sure, every information. Shall I fish it out for you?' she encouragingly asked, beside him by her secretary-desk, at which he had arrived under her persuasive guidance and where she sought solidly to establish him, opening out the gilded crimson case for his employ, so that he had but to help himself. 'What enormous cheques! You can never draw one for two-pound-ten!'

'That's exactly what you deserve I should do!' He remained after this solemnly still, however, like some high-priest circled with ceremonies; in consonance with which, the next moment, both her hands held out to him the open and immaculate page of the oblong series much as they might have presented a royal infant at the christening-font.

He failed, in his preoccupation, to receive it; so she placed it before him on the table, coming away with a brave gay 'Well, I leave it to you!' She had not, restlessly revolving, kept her discreet distance for many minutes before she found herself almost face to face with the recurrent Gotch, upright at the door with a fresh announcement.

'Mr. Crimble, please—for Lady Grace.'

'Mr. Crimble again?'—she took it discomposedly.

It reached Mr. Bender at the secretary, but to a different effect. 'Mr. Crimble? Why he's just the man I want to see!'

Gotch, turning to the lobby, had only to make way for him. 'Here he is, my lady.'

'Then tell her ladyship.'

'She has come down,' said Gotch while Hugh arrived and his companion withdrew, and while Lady Grace, reaching the scene from the other quarter, emerged in bright equipment—in her hat, scarf and gloves.

IV

These young persons were thus at once confronted across the room, and the girl explained her preparation. 'I was listening hard—for your knock and your voice.'

'Then know that, thank God, it's all right!'—Hugh was breathless, jubilant, radiant.

'A Mantovano?' she delightedly cried.

'A Mantovano!' he proudly gave back.

'A Mantovano!'—it carried even Lady Sandgate away.

'A Mantovano—a sure thing?' Mr. Bender jumped up from his business, all gaping attention to Hugh.

'I've just left our blest Bardi,' said that young man—'who hasn't the shadow of a doubt and is delighted to publish it everywhere.'

'Will he publish it right here to me?' Mr. Bender hungrily asked.

'Well,' Hugh smiled, 'you can try him.'

'But try him how, where?' The great collector, straining to instant action, cast about for his hat 'Where is he, hey?'

'Don't you wish I'd tell you?' Hugh, in his personal elation, almost cynically answered.

'Won't you wait for the Prince?' Lady Sandgate had meanwhile asked of her friend; but had turned more inspectingly to Lady Grace before he could reply. 'My dear child—though you're lovely!—are you sure you're ready for him?'

'For the Prince!'—the girl was vague. 'Is he coming?'

'At five-forty-five.' With which she consulted her bracelet watch, but only at once to wail for alarm. 'Ah, it is that, and I'm not dressed!' She hurried off through the other room.

Mr. Bender, quite accepting her retreat, addressed himself again unabashed to Hugh: 'It's your blest Bardi I want first—I'll take the Prince after.'

The young man clearly could afford indulgence now. 'Then I left him at Long's Hotel.'

'Why, right near! I'll come back.' And Mr. Bender's flight was on the wings of optimism.

But it all gave Hugh a quick question for Lady Grace. 'Why does the Prince come, and what in the world's happening?'

'My father has suddenly returned—it may have to do with that.'

The shadow of his surprise darkened visibly to that of his fear. 'Mayn't it be more than anything else to give you and me his final curse?'

'I don't know—and I think I don't care. I don't care,' she said, 'so long as you're right and as the greatest light of all declares you are.'

'He is the greatest'—Hugh was vividly of that opinion now: 'I could see it as soon as I got there with him, the charming creature! There, before the holy thing, and with the place, by good luck, for those great moments, practically to ourselves—without Macintosh to take in what was happening or any one else at all to speak of—it was but a matter of ten minutes: he had come, he had seen, and I had conquered.'

'Naturally you had!'—the girl hung on him for it; 'and what was happening beyond everything else was that for your original dear divination, one of the divinations of genius—with every creature all these ages so stupid—you