II
As Hugh recognised in this friend's entrance and face the light ofwelcome he went, full of his subject, straight to their main affair. "Ihaven't been able to wait, I've wanted so much to tell you--I mean howI've just come back from Brussels, where I saw Pappen-dick, who was freeand ready, by the happiest chance, to start for Verona, which he musthave reached some time yesterday."
The girl's responsive interest fairly broke into rapture. "Ah, the dearsweet thing!"
"Yes, he's a brick--but the question now hangs in the balance. Allowinghim time to have got into relation with the picture, I've begun toexpect his wire, which will probably come to my club; but my fidget,while I wait, has driven me"--he threw out and dropped his arms inexpression of his soft surrender--"well, just to do _this_: to come toyou here, in my fever, at an unnatural hour and uninvited, and at leastlet you know I've 'acted.'"
"Oh, but I simply rejoice," Lady Grace declared, "to be acting _with_you."
"Then if you are, if you are," the young man cried, "why everything'sbeautiful and right!"
"It's all I care for and think of now," she went on in her brightdevotion, "and I've only wondered and hoped!"
Well, Hugh found for it all a rapid, abundant lucidity. "He was awayfrom home at first, and I had to wait--but I crossed last week, foundhim and settled incoming home by Paris, where I had a grand four days'jaw with the fellows there and saw _their_ great specimen of our master:all of which has given him time."
"And now his time's up?" the girl eagerly asked.
"It _must_ be--and we shall see." But Hugh postponed that question to amatter of more moment still. "The thing is that at last I'm able to tellyou how I feel the trouble I've brought you."
It made her, quickly colouring, rest grave eyes on him. "What do youknow--when I haven't told you--about my 'trouble'?"
"Can't I have guessed, with a ray of intelligence?"--he had his answerready. "You've sought asylum with this good friend from the effects ofyour father's resentment."
"'Sought asylum' is perhaps excessive," Lady Grace returned--"thoughit wasn't pleasant with him after that hour, no," she allowed. "And Icouldn't go, you see, to Kitty."
"No indeed, you couldn't go to Kitty." He smiled at her hard as headded: "I should have liked to see you go to Kitty! Therefore exactly isit that I've set you adrift--that I've darkened and poisoned your days.You're paying with your comfort, with your peace, for having joined sogallantly in my grand remonstrance."
She shook her head, turning from him, but then turned back again--as ifaccepting, as if even relieved by, this version of the prime cause ofher state. "Why do you talk of it as 'paying'--if it's all to come backto my _being_ paid? I mean by your blest success--if you really do whatyou want."
"I have your word for it," he searchingly said, "that our really pullingit off together will make up to you----?"
"I should be ashamed if it didn't, for everything!"--she took thequestion from his mouth. "I believe in such a cause exactly as youdo--and found a lesson, at Dedborough, in your frankness and yourfaith."
"Then you'll help me no end," he said all simply and sincerely.
"You've helped _me_ already"--that she gave him straight back. And on itthey stayed a moment, their strenuous faces more intensely communing.
"You're very wonderful--for a girl!" Hugh brought out.
"One _has_ to be a girl, naturally, to be a daughter of one's house,"she laughed; "and that's all I am of ours--but a true and a right and astraight one."
He glowed with his admiration. "You're splendid!"
That might be or not, her light shrug intimated; she gave it, at anyrate, the go-by and more exactly stated her case. "I see our situation."
"So do I, Lady Grace!" he cried with the strongest emphasis. "And yourfather only doesn't."
"Yes," she said for intelligent correction--"he sees it, there's nothingin life he sees so much. But unfortunately he sees it all wrong."
Hugh seized her point of view as if there had been nothing of her thathe wouldn't have seized. "He sees it all wrong then! My appeal the otherday he took as a rude protest. And any protest----"
"Any protest," she quickly and fully agreed, "he takes as an offence,yes. It's his theory that he still has rights," she smiled, "though he_is_ a miserable peer."
"How should he not have rights," said Hugh, "when he has reallyeverything on earth?"
"Ah, he doesn't even _know_ that--he takes it so much for granted." Andshe sought, though as rather sadly and despairingly, to explain. "Helives all in his own world."
"He lives all in his own, yes; but he does business all in ours--quiteas much as the people who come up to the city in the Tube." With whichHugh had a still sharper recall of the stiff actual. "And he must behere to do business to-day."
"You know," Lady Grace asked, "that he's to meet Mr. Bender?"
"Lady Sandgate kindly warned me, and," her companion saw as he glancedat the clock on the chimney, "I've only ten minutes, at best. The'Journal' won't have been good for him," he added--"you doubtless haveseen the 'Journal'?"
"No"--she was vague. "We live by the 'Morning Post.'"
"That's why our friend here didn't speak then," Hugh said with a betterlight--"which, out of a dim consideration for her, I didn't do, either.But they've a leader this morning about Lady Lappington and her Longhi,and on Bender and his hauls, and on the certainty--if we don't dosomething energetic--of more and more Benders to come: such a conqueringhorde as invaded the old civilisation, only armed now with hugecheque-books instead of with spears and battle-axes. They refer to therumour current--as too horrific to believe--of Lord Theign's putting uphis Moretto; with the question of how properly to qualify any suchsad purpose in him should the further report prove true of a new andmomentous opinion about the picture entertained by several eminentauthorities."
"Of whom," said the girl, intensely attached to this recital, "you're ofcourse seen as not the least."
"Of whom, of course, Lady Grace, I'm as yet--however I'm 'seen'--thewhole collection. But we've time"--he rested on that "The fat, if you'llallow me the expression, is on the fire--which, as I see the matter, iswhere this particular fat _should_ be."
"Is the article, then," his companion appealed, "very severe?"
"I prefer to call it very enlightened and very intelligent--and thegreat thing is that it immensely 'marks,' as they say. It will have madea big public difference--from this day; though it's of course aimed notso much at persons as at conditions; which it calls upon us all somehowto tackle."
"Exactly"--she was full of the saving vision; "but as the conditions aredirectly embodied in persons----"
"Oh, of course it here and there bells the cat; which means that itbells three or four."
"Yes," she richly brooded--"Lady Lappington _is_ a cat!"
"She will have been 'belled,' at any rate, with your father," Hughamusedly went on, "to the certainty of a row; and a row can only be goodfor us--I mean for _us_ in particular." Yet he had to bethink himself."The case depends a good deal of course on how your father _takes_ sucha resounding rap."
"Oh, I know how he'll take it!"--her perception went all the way.
"In the very highest and properest spirit?"
"Well, you'll see." She was as brave as she was clear. "Or at least Ishall!"
Struck with all this in her he renewed his homage. "You _are_, yes,splendid!"
"I even," she laughed, "surprise myself."
But he was already back at his calculations. "How early do the papersget to you?"
"At Dedborough? Oh, quite for breakfast--which isn't, however, veryearly."
"Then that's what has caused his wire to Bender."
"But how will such talk strike _him_?" the girl asked.
Hugh meanwhile, visibly, had not only followed his train of thought,he had let it lead him to certainty. "It will have moved Mr. Bender toabsolute rapture."
"Rather," Lady Grace wondered, "than have put him off?"
"It will have
put him prodigiously _on!_ Mr. Bender--as he said to meat Dedborough of his noble host there," Hugh pursued--"is 'a very niceman'; but he's a product of the world of advertisment, and advertisementis all he sees and aims at. He lives in it as a saint in glory or a fishin water."
She took it from him as half doubting. "But mayn't advertisement, in sospecial a case, turn, on the whole, against him?"
Hugh shook a negative forefinger with an expression he might have caughtfrom foreign comrades. "He rides the biggest whirlwind--he has got itsaddled and bitted."
She faced the image, but cast about "Then where does our success comein?"
"In our making the beast, all the same, bolt with him and throw him."And Hugh further pointed the moral. "If in such proceedings all heknows is publicity the thing is to give him publicity, and it's only aquestion of giving him enough. By the time he has enough for himself,you see, he'll have too much for every one else--so that we shall 'up'in a body and slay him."
The girl's eyebrows, in her wondering face, rose to a question. "But ifhe has meanwhile got the picture?"
"We'll slay him before he gets it!" He revelled in the breadth of hisview. "Our own policy must be to _organise_ to that end the inevitableoutcry. Organise Bender himself--organise him to scandal." Hugh hadalready even pity to spare for their victim. "He won't know it from aboom."
Though carried along, however, Lady Grace could still measure. "But thatwill be only if he wants and decides for the picture."
"We must make him then want and decide for it--decide, that is, for'ours.' To save it we must work him up--he'll in that case want it soindecently much. Then _we_ shall have to want it more!"
"Well," she anxiously felt it her duty to remind him, "you can take ahorse to water----!"
"Oh, trust me to make him drink!"
There appeared a note in this that convinced her. "It's you, Mr.Crimble, who are 'splendid'!"
"Well, I shall be--with my jolly wire!" And all on that scent again,"May I come back to you from the club with Pappendick's news?" he asked.
"Why, rather, of course, come back!"
"Only not," he debated, "till your father has left."
Lady Grace considered too, but sharply decided. "Come when you _have_it. But tell me first," she added, "one thing." She hung fire a littlewhile he waited, but she brought it out. "Was it you who got the'Journal' to speak?"
"Ah, one scarcely 'gets' the 'Journal'!"
"Who then gave them their 'tip'?"
"About the Mantovano and its peril?" Well, he took a moment--but onlynot to say; in addition to which the butler had reappeared, enteringfrom the lobby. "I'll tell you," he laughed, "when I come back!"
Gotch had his manner of announcement while the visitor was mounting thestairs. "Mr. Breckenridge Bender!"
"Ah then I go," said Lady Grace at once.
"I'll stay three minutes." Hugh turned with her, alertly, to the easierissue, signalling hope and cheer from that threshold as he watched herdisappear; after which he faced about with as brave a smile and as readyfor immediate action as if she had there within kissed her hand to him.Mr. Bender emerged at the same instant, Gotch withdrawing and closingthe door behind him; and the former personage, recognising his youngfriend, threw up his hands for friendly pleasure.