III
Left with her friend, Lady Grace had a prompt question. "Lord Johnwarned me he was 'funny'--but you already know him?"
There might have been a sense of embarrassment in the way in which, asto gain time, Lady Sandgate pointed, instead of answering, to the smallpicture pronounced upon by Mr. Bender. "He thinks your little Cuyp afraud."
"That one?" Lady Grace could but stare. "The wretch!" However, she made,without alarm, no more of it; she returned to her previous question."You've met him before?"
"Just a little--in town. Being 'after pictures'" Lady Sandgateexplained, "he has been after my great-grandmother."
"She," said Lady Grace with amusement, "must have found him funny! Buthe can clearly take care of himself, while Kitty takes care of LordJohn, and while you, if you'll be so good, go back to support father--inthe hour of his triumph: which he wants you so much to witness thathe complains of your desertion and goes so far as to speak of you assneaking away."
Lady Sandgate, with a slight flush, turned it over. "I delight inhis triumph, and whatever I do is at least above board; but if it's aquestion of support, aren't you yourself failing him quite as much?"
This had, however, no effect on the girl's confidence. "Ah, my dear, I'mnot at all the same thing, and as I'm the person in the world he leastmisses--" Well, such a fact spoke for itself.
"You've been free to return and wait for Lord John?"--that was thesense in which the elder woman appeared to prefer to understand it asspeaking.
The tone of it, none the less, led her companion immediately, thoughvery quietly, to correct her. "I've not come back to wait for LordJohn."
"Then he hasn't told you--if you've talked--with what idea he has come?"
Lady Grace had for a further correction the same shade of detachment."Kitty has told me--what it suits her to pretend to suppose."
"And Kitty's pretensions and suppositions always go with whathappens--at the moment, among all her wonderful happenings--to suither?"
Lady Grace let that question answer itself--she took the case up furtheron. "What I can't make out is why this _should_ so suit her!"
"And what _I_ can't!" said Lady Sandgate without gross honesty andturning away after having watched the girl a moment. She neverthelesspresently faced her again to follow this speculation up. "Do you likehim enough to risk the chance of Kitty's being for once right?"
Lady Grace gave it a thought--with which she moved away. "I don't knowhow much I like him!"
"Nor how little!" cried her friend, who evidently found amusement in thetone of it. "And you're not disposed to take the time to find out? He'sat least better than the others."
"The 'others'?"--Lady Grace was blank for them.
"The others of his set."
"Oh, his set! That wouldn't be difficult--by what I imagine of some ofthem. But he means well enough," the girl added; "he's very charming anddoes me great honour."
It determined in her companion, about to leave her, another briefarrest. "Then may I tell your father?"
This in turn brought about in Lady Grace an immediate drop of thesubject. "Tell my father, please, that I'm expecting Mr. Crimble; ofwhom I've spoken to him even if he doesn't remember, and who bicyclesthis afternoon ten miles over from where he's staying--with some peoplewe don't know--to look at the pictures, about which he's awfully keen."
Lady Sandgate took it in. "Ah, like Mr. Bender?"
"No, not at all, I think, like Mr. Bender."
This appeared to move in the elder woman some deeper thought "May I askthen--if one's to meet him--who he is?"
"Oh, father knows--or ought to--that I sat next him, in London, a monthago, at dinner, and that he then told me he was working, tooth andnail, at what he called the wonderful modern science ofConnoisseurship--which is upsetting, as perhaps you're not aware, allthe old-fashioned canons of art-criticism, everything we've stupidlythought right and held dear; that he was to spend Easter in these parts,and that he should like greatly to be allowed some day to come over andmake acquaintance with our things. I told him," Lady Grace woundup, "that nothing would be easier; a note from him arrived beforedinner----"
Lady Sandgate jumped the rest "And it's for him you've come in."
"It's for him I've come in," the girl assented with serenity.
"Very good--though he sounds most detrimental! But will you first justtell me _this_--whether when you sent in ten minutes ago for Lord Johnto come out to you it was wholly of your own movement?" And she followedit up as her young friend appeared to hesitate. "Was it because you knewwhy he had arrived?"
The young friend hesitated still. "'Why '?"
"So particularly to speak to you."
"Since he was expected and mightn't know where I was," Lady Grace saidafter an instant, "I wanted naturally to be civil to him."
"And had he time there to tell you," Lady Sand-gate asked, "how verycivil he wants to be to you?"
"No, only to tell me that his friend--who's off there--was coming; forKitty at once appropriated him and was still in possession when I cameaway." Then, as deciding at last on perfect frankness, Lady Grace wenton: "If you want to know, I sent for news of him because Kitty insistedon my doing so; saying, so very oddly and quite in her own way, that sheherself didn't wish to 'appear in it.' She had done nothing but say tome for an hour, rather worryingly, what you've just said--that it'sme he's what, like Mr. Bender, she calls 'after'; but as soon ashe appeared she pounced on him, and I left him--I assure you quiteresignedly--in her hands."
"She wants"--it was easy for Lady Sandgate to remark--"to talk of you tohim."
"I don't know _what_ she wants," the girl replied as with rather a tiredpatience; "Kitty wants so many things at once. She always wants money,in quantities, to begin with--and all to throw so horribly away; so thatwhenever I see her 'in' so very deep with any one I always imagine herappealing for some new tip as to how it's to be come by."
"Kitty's an abyss, I grant you, and with my disinterested devotion toyour father--in requital of all his kindness to me since Lord Sandgate'sdeath and since your mother's--I can never be too grateful to you, mydear, for your being so different a creature. But what is she going togain financially," Lady Sand-gate pursued with a strong emphasis onher adverb, "by working up our friend's confidence in your listening tohim--if you _are_ to listen?"
"I haven't in the least engaged to listen," said Lady Grace--"it willdepend on the music he makes!" But she added with light cynicism:"Perhaps she's to gain a commission!"
"On his fairly getting you?" And then as the girl assented by silence:"Is he in a position to pay her one?" Lady Sandgate asked.
"I dare say the Duchess is!"
"But do you see the Duchess _producing_ money--with all that Kitty, aswe're not ignorant, owes her? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds!"--LadySandgate piled them up.
Her young friend's gesture checked it. "Ah, don't tell me how many--it'stoo sad and too ugly and too wrong!" To which, however, Lady Graceadded: "But perhaps that will be just her way!" And then as hercompanion seemed for the moment not quite to follow: "By letting Kittyoff her debt."
"You mean that Kitty goes free if Lord John wins your promise?"
"Kitty goes free."
"She has her creditor's release?"
"For every shilling."
"And if he only fails?"
"Why then of course," said now quite lucid Lady Grace, "she throwsherself more than ever on poor father."
"Poor father indeed!"--Lady Sandgate richly sighed it
It appeared even to create in the younger woman a sense of excess."Yes--but he after all and in spite of everything adores her."
"To the point, you mean"--for Lady Sandgate could clearly butwonder--"of really sacrificing you?"
The weight of Lady Grace's charming deep eyes on her face made herpause while, at some length, she gave back this look and the interchangedetermined in the girl a grave appeal. "You think I _should_ besacrificed if I married him?"
Lady S
andgate replied, though with an equal emphasis, indirectly."_Could_ you marry him?"
Lady Grace waited a moment "Do you mean for Kitty?"
"For himself even--if they should convince you, among them, that hecares for you."
Lady Grace had another delay. "Well, he's his awful mother's son."
"Yes--but you wouldn't marry his mother."
"No--but I should only be the more uncomfortably and intimatelyconscious of her."
"Even when," Lady Sandgate optimistically put it, "she so markedly likesyou?"
This determined in the girl a fine impatience. "She doesn't 'like' me,she only _wants_ me--which is a very different thing; wants me formy father's so particularly beautiful position, and my mother's sosupremely great people, and for everything we have been and have done,and still are and still have: except of course poor not-at-all-modelKitty."
To this luminous account of the matter Lady Sand-gate turned as to agenial sun-burst. "I see indeed--for the general immaculate connection."
The words had no note of irony, but Lady Grace, in her greatseriousness, glanced with deprecation at the possibility. "Well, we_haven't_ had false notes. We've scarcely even had bad moments."
"Yes, you've been beatific!"--Lady Sandgate enviously, quite ruefully,felt it. But any further treatment of the question was checked by there-entrance of the footman--a demonstration explained by the concomitantappearance of a young man in eyeglasses and with the ends of histrousers clipped together as for cycling. "This must be your friend,"she had only time to say to the daughter of the house; with which, alertand reminded of how she was awaited elsewhere, she retreated before hercompanion's visitor, who had come in with his guide from the vestibule.She passed away to the terrace and the gardens, Mr. Hugh Crimble'sannounced name ringing in her ears--to some effect that we are as yetnot qualified to discern.