Red Pottage | Page 2

ever guessed it," repeated Hugh,
fervently, as the hansom came suddenly to a stand-still.
In another moment he was taking Lady Newhaven's hand as she stood
at the entrance of her amber drawing-room beside a grove of pink
orchids.
He chatted a moment, greeted Lord Newhaven, and passed on into the
crowded rooms. How could any one have guessed it? No breath of
scandal had ever touched Lady Newhaven. She stood beside her pink
orchids, near her fatigued-looking, gentle-mannered husband, a very
pretty woman in white satin and diamonds. Perhaps her blond hair was
a shade darker at the roots than in its waved coils; perhaps her blue
eyes did not look quite in harmony with their blue-black lashes; but the
whole effect had the delicate, conventional perfection of a cleverly
touched-up chromo-lithograph. Of course, tastes differ. Some people

like chromo-lithographs, others don't. But even those who do are apt to
become estranged. They may inspire love, admiration, but never
fidelity. Most of us have in our time hammered nails into our walls
which, though they now decorously support the engravings and
etchings of our maturer years, were nevertheless originally driven in to
uphold the cherished, the long since discarded chromos of our foolish
youth.
The diamond sun upon Lady Newhaven's breast quivered a little, a very
little, as Hugh greeted her, and she turned to offer the same small smile
and gloved hand to the next comer, whose name was leaping before
him from one footman to another.
"Mr. Richard Vernon."
Lady Newhaven's wide blue eyes looked vague. Her hand hesitated.
This strongly built, ill-dressed man, with his keen, brown, deeply
scarred face and crooked mouth, was unknown to her.
Lord Newhaven darted forward.
"Dick!" he exclaimed, and Dick shot forth an immense mahogany hand
and shook Lord Newhaven's warmly.
"Well," he said, after Lord Newhaven had introduced him to his wife,
"I'm dashed if I knew who either of you were. But I found your
invitation at my club when I landed yesterday, so I decided to come and
have a look at you. And so it is only you, Cackles, after all"--(Lord
Newhaven's habit of silence had earned for him the sobriquet of
"Cackles")--"I quite thought I was going into--well, ahem!--into society.
I did not know you had got a handle to your name. How did you find
out I was in England?"
"My dear fellow, I didn't," said Lord Newhaven, gently drawing Dick
aside, whose back was serenely blocking a stream of new arrivals. "I
fancy--in fact, I'm simply delighted to see you. How is the wine getting
on? But I suppose there must be other Dick Vernons on my wife's list.
Have you the card with you?"

"Rather," said Dick; "always take the card with me since I was kicked
out of a miner's hop at Broken Hill because I forgot it. 'No gentleman
will be admitted in a paper shirt' was mentioned on it, I remember. A
concertina, and candles in bottles. Ripping while it lasted. I wish you
had been there."
"I wish I had." Lord Newhaven's tired, half-closed eye opened a little.
"But the end seems to have been unfortunate."
"Not at all," said Dick, watching the new arrivals with his head thrown
back. "Fine girl that; I'll take a look at the whole mob of them directly.
They came round next day to say it had been a mistake, but there were
four or five cripples who found that out the night before. Here is the
card."
Lord Newhaven glanced at it attentively, and then laughed.
"It is four years old," he said; "I must have put you on my mother's list,
not knowing you had left London. It is in her writing."
"I'm rather late," said Dick, composedly; "but I am here at last. Now,
Cack--Newhaven, if that's your noble name--as I am here, trot out a few
heiresses, would you? I want to take one or two back with me. I say,
ought I to put my gloves on?"
"No, no. Clutch them in your great fist as you are doing now."
"Thanks. I suppose, old chap, I'm all right? Not had on an evening-coat
for four years."
Dick's trousers were too short for him, and he had tied his white tie
with a waist to it. Lord Newhaven had seen both details before he
recognized him.
"Quite right," he said, hastily. "Now, who is to be the happy woman?"
Dick's hawk eye promenaded over the crowd in the second room, in the
door-way of which he was standing.

"That one," he said; "the tall girl in the green gown talking to the
Bishop."
"You have a wonderful eye for heiresses. You have picked out the
greatest in London. That is Miss Rachel West. You say you want two."
"One at a