The Outcry | Page 2

makes the idea of one's duty an
awful thing to his friends by the extravagance with which he always
overdoes it." And the image itself appeared in some degree to prompt

this particular edified friend to look at his watch and consider. "I should
like to come in for the grand finale, but I rattled over in a great measure
to meet a party, as he calls himself--and calls, if you please, even
me!--who's motoring down by appointment and whom I think I should
be here to receive; as well as a little, I confess, in the hope of a glimpse
of Lady Grace: if you can perhaps imagine that!"
"I can imagine it perfectly," said Lady Sandgate, whom evidently no
perceptions of that general order ever cost a strain. "It quite sticks out
of you, and every one moreover has for some time past been waiting to
see. But you haven't then," she added, "come from town?"
"No, I'm for three days at Chanter with my mother; whom, as she
kindly lent me her car, I should have rather liked to bring."
Lady Sandgate left the unsaid, in this connection, languish no longer
than was decent. "But whom you doubtless had to leave, by her
preference, just settling down to bridge."
"Oh, to sit down would imply that my mother at some moment of the
day gets up----!"
"Which the Duchess never does?"--Lady Sand-gate only asked to be
allowed to show how she saw it. "She fights to the last, invincible;
gathering in the spoils and only routing her friends?" She abounded
genially in her privileged vision. "Ah yes--we know something of that!"
Lord John, who was a young man of a rambling but not of an idle eye,
fixed her an instant with a surprise that was yet not steeped in
compassion. "You too then?"
She wouldn't, however, too meanly narrow it down. "Well, in this
house generally; where I'm so often made welcome, you see, and
where----"
"Where," he broke in at once, "your jolly good footing quite sticks out
of you, perhaps you'll let me say!"

She clearly didn't mind his seeing her ask herself how she should deal
with so much rather juvenile intelligence; and indeed she could only
decide to deal quite simply. "You can't say more than I feel--and am
proud to feel!--at being of comfort when they're worried."
This but fed the light flame of his easy perception--which lighted for
him, if she would, all the facts equally. "And they're worried now, you
imply, because my terrible mother is capable of heavy gains and of
making a great noise if she isn't paid? I ought to mind speaking of that
truth," he went on as with a practised glance in the direction of delicacy;
"but I think I should like you to know that I myself am not a bit
ignorant of why it has made such an impression here."
Lady Sandgate forestalled his knowledge. "Because poor Kitty
Imber--who should either never touch a card or else learn to suffer in
silence, as I've had to, goodness knows!--has thrown herself, with her
impossible big debt, upon her father? whom she thinks herself entitled
to 'look to' even more as a lovely young widow with a good jointure
than she formerly did as the mere most beautiful daughter at home."
She had put the picture a shade interrogatively, but this was as nothing
to the note of free inquiry in Lord John's reply. "You mean that our
lovely young widows--to say nothing of lovely young wives--ought by
this time to have made out, in predicaments, how to turn round?"
His temporary hostess, even with his eyes on her, appeared to decide
after a moment not wholly to disown his thought. But she smiled for it.
"Well, in that set----!"
"My mother's set?" However, if she could smile he could laugh. "I'm
much obliged!"
"Oh," she qualified, "I don't criticise her Grace; but the ways and
traditions and tone of this house----"
"Make it"--he took her sense straight from her--"the house in England
where one feels most the false note of a dishevelled and bankrupt elder
daughter breaking in with a list of her gaming debts--to say nothing of

others!--and wishing to have at least those wiped out in the interest of
her reputation? Exactly so," he went on before she could meet it with a
diplomatic ambiguity; "and just that, I assure you, is a large part of the
reason I like to come here--since I personally don't come with any such
associations."
"Not the association of bankruptcy--no; as you represent the payee!"
The young man appeared to regard this imputation for a moment
almost as a liberty taken. "How do you know so well, Lady Sandgate,
what I represent?"
She bethought herself--but briefly and bravely.