The Little Nugget | Page 3

all?'
'I am hoping so.'
Lord Mountry, however willing to emit sympathetic gurgles, was too
plain and straightforward a young man to approve of wilful blindness
to obvious facts.
'I don't see how you are going to override the decision of the court. It
holds good in England, I suppose?'
'I am hoping something may be--arranged.'
'Oh, same here, same here. Certainly.' Having done his duty by not
allowing plain facts to be ignored, his lordship was ready to become
sympathetic again. 'By the way, where is Ogden?'
'He is down at Mr Ford's house in the country. But--'
She was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone bell. She was out of
her seat and across the room at the receiver with what appeared to Lord
Mountry's startled gaze one bound. As she put the instrument to her ear
a wave of joy swept over her face. She gave a little cry of delight and
excitement.
'Send them right up at once,' she said, and turned to Lord Mountry
transformed.
'Lord Mountry,' she said quickly, 'please don't think me impossibly
rude if I turn you out. Some--some people are coming to see me. I
must--'
His lordship rose hurriedly.
'Of course. Of course. Certainly. Where did I put my--ah, here.' He
seized his hat, and by way of economizing effort, knocked his stick on
to the floor with the same movement. Mrs Ford watched his bendings
and gropings with growing impatience, till finally he rose, a little
flushed but with a full hand--stick, gloves, and hat, all present and
correct.

'Good-bye, then, Mrs Ford, for the present. You'll let me know if your
little boy will be able to make one of our party on the yacht?'
'Yes, yes. Thank you ever so much. Good-bye.'
'Good-bye.'
He reached the door and opened it.
'By Jove,' he said, springing round--'Stanborough! What about
Stanborough? Shall I tell him to wait? He's down below, you know!'
'Yes, yes. Tell Mr Stanborough I'm dreadfully sorry to have to keep
him waiting, and ask him if he won't stay for a few minutes in the Palm
Room.'
Inspiration came to Lord Mountry.
'I'll give him a drink,' he said.
'Yes, yes, anything. Lord Mountry, you really must go. I know I'm rude.
I don't know what I'm saying. But--my boy is returning to me.'
The accumulated chivalry of generations of chivalrous ancestors acted
like a spur on his lordship. He understood but dimly, yet enough to
enable him to realize that a scene was about to take place in which he
was most emphatically not 'on'. A mother's meeting with her long-lost
child, this is a sacred thing. This was quite clear to him, so, turning like
a flash, he bounded through the doorway, and, as somebody happened
to be coming in at the same time, there was a collision, which left him
breathing apologies in his familiar attitude of stooping to pick up his
hat.
The new-comers were a tall, strikingly handsome girl, with a rather
hard and cynical cast of countenance. She was leading by the hand a
small, fat boy of about fourteen years of age, whose likeness to the
portrait on the chair proclaimed his identity. He had escaped the
collision, but seemed offended by it; for, eyeing the bending peer with
cold distaste, he summed up his opinion of him in the one word
'Chump!'
Lord Mountry rose.
'I beg your pardon,' he said for perhaps the seventh time. He was
thoroughly unstrung. Always excessively shy, he was embarrassed now
by quite a variety of causes. The world was full of eyes--Mrs Ford's
saying 'Go!' Ogden's saying 'Fool!' the portrait saying 'Idiot!' and,
finally, the eyes of this wonderfully handsome girl, large, grey, cool,
amused, and contemptuous saying--so it seemed to him in that feverish

moment--'Who is this curious pink person who cumbers the ground
before me?'
'I--I beg your pardon.' he repeated.
'Ought to look where you're going,' said Ogden severely.
'Not at all,' said the girl. 'Won't you introduce me, Nesta?'
'Lord Mountry--Miss Drassilis,' said Mrs Ford.
'I'm afraid we're driving Lord Mountry away,' said the girl. Her eyes
seemed to his lordship larger, greyer, cooler, more amused, and more
contemptuous than ever. He floundered in them like an unskilful
swimmer in deep waters.
'No, no,' he stammered. 'Give you my word. Just going. Good-bye. You
won't forget to let me know about the yacht, Mrs Ford--what? It'll be an
awfully jolly party. Good-bye, good-bye, Miss Drassilis.'
He looked at Ogden for an instant, as if undecided whether to take the
liberty of addressing him too, and then, his heart apparently failing him,
turned and bolted. From down the corridor came the clatter of a
dropped stick.
Cynthia Drassilis closed the door and smiled.
'A nervous young person!' she