My Ladys Money | Page 7

left together, looked at each other.
"Moody," said Felix, in his lazily-cynical way, "do you think if you or I
were in a fit that her Ladyship would run? Bah! these are the things that
shake one's faith in human nature. I feel infernally seedy. That cursed
Channel passage--I tremble in my inmost stomach when I think of it.
Get me something, Moody."
"What shall I send you, sir?" Moody asked coldly.
"Some dry curacoa and a biscuit. And let it be brought to me in the
picture-gallery. Damn the dog! I'll go and look at Hobbema."
This time he succeeded in reaching the archway, and disappeared
behind the curtains of the picture-gallery.
CHAPTER IV.
LEFT alone in the drawing-room, Moody looked at the unfastened
envelope on the table.
Considering the value of the inclosure, might he feel justified in
wetting the gum and securing the envelope for safety's sake? After
thinking it over, Moody decided that he was not justified in meddling
with the letter. On reflection, her Ladyship might have changes to make
in it or might have a postscript to add to what she had already written.
Apart too, from these considerations, was it reasonable to act as if Lady
Lydiard's house was a hotel, perpetually open to the intrusion of

strangers? Objects worth twice five hundred pounds in the aggregate
were scattered about on the tables and in the unlocked cabinets all
round him. Moody withdrew, without further hesitation, to order the
light restorative prescribed for himself by Mr. Sweetsir.
The footman who took the curacoa into the picture gallery found Felix
recumbent on a sofa, admiring the famous Hobbema.
"Don't interrupt me," he said peevishly, catching the servant in the act
of staring at him. "Put down the bottle and go!" Forbidden to look at
Mr. Sweetsir, the man's eyes as he left the gallery turned wonderingly
towards the famous landscape. And what did he see? He saw one
towering big cloud in the sky that threatened rain, two withered
mahogany-colored trees sorely in want of rain, a muddy road greatly
the worse for rain, and a vagabond boy running home who was afraid
of the rain. That was the picture, to the footman's eye. He took a
gloomy view of the state of Mr. Sweetsir's brains on his return to the
servants' hall. "A slate loose, poor devil!" That was the footman's report
of the brilliant Felix.
Immediately on the servant's departure, the silence in the
picture-gallery was broken by voices penetrating into it from the
drawing-room. Felix rose to a sitting position on the sofa. He had
recognized the voice of Alfred Hardyman saying, "Don't disturb Lady
Lydiard," and the voice of Moody answering, "I will just knock at the
door of her Ladyship's room, sir; you will find Mr. Sweetsir in the
picture-gallery."
The curtains over the archway parted, and disclosed the figure of a tall
man, with a closely cropped head set a little stiffly on his shoulders.
The immovable gravity of face and manner which every Englishman
seems to acquire who lives constantly in the society of horses, was the
gravity which this gentleman displayed as he entered the picture-gallery.
He was a finely made, sinewy man, with clearly cut, regular features. If
he had not been affected with horses on the brain he would doubtless
have been personally popular with the women. As it was, the serene
and hippic gloom of the handsome horse-breeder daunted the daughters
of Eve, and they failed to make up their minds about the exact value of

him, socially considered. Alfred Hardyman was nevertheless a
remarkable man in his way. He had been offered the customary
alternatives submitted to the younger sons of the nobility--the Church
or the diplomatic service--and had refused the one and the other. "I like
horses," he said, "and I mean to get my living out of them. Don't talk to
me about my position in the world. Talk to my eldest brother, who gets
the money and the title." Starting in life with these sensible views, and
with a small capital of five thousand pounds, Hardyman took his own
place in the sphere that was fitted for him. At the period of this
narrative he was already a rich man, and one of the greatest authorities
on horse-breeding in England. His prosperity made no change in him.
He was always the same grave, quiet, obstinately resolute man--true to
the few friends whom he admitted to his intimacy, and sincere to a fault
in the expression of his feelings among persons whom he distrusted or
disliked. As he entered the picture-gallery and paused for a moment
looking at Felix on the sofa, his large, cold, steady gray eyes rested on
the little man with an indifference that just verged on contempt. Felix,