The Outcry | Page 7

but what the razor and the sponge, the
tooth-brush and the looking-glass could officiously do; it had in short
resisted any possibly finer attrition at the hands of fifty years of offered
experience. It had developed on the lines, if lines they could be called,
of the mere scoured and polished and initialled "mug" rather than to
any effect of a composed physiognomy; though we must at the same

time add that its wearer carried this featureless disk as with the
warranted confidence that might have attended a warning headlight or a
glaring motor-lamp. The object, however one named it, showed you at
least where he was, and most often that he was straight upon you. It
was fearlessly and resistingly across the path of his advance that Lady
Sandgate had thrown herself, and indeed with such success that he soon
connected her demonstration with a particular motive. "For your
grandmother, Lady Sandgate?" he then returned.
"For my grandmother's mother, Mr. Bender--the most beautiful woman
of her time and the greatest of all Lawrences, no matter whose; as you
quite acknowledged, you know, in our talk in Bruton Street."
Mr. Bender bethought himself further--yet drawing it out; as if the
familiar fact of his being "made up to" had never had such special
softness and warmth of pressure. "Do you want very, very much----?"
She had already caught him up. "'Very, very much' for her? Well, Mr.
Bender," she smilingly replied, "I think I should like her full value."
"I mean"--he kindly discriminated--"do you want so badly to work her
off?"
"It would be an intense convenience to me--so much so that your
telegram made me at once fondly hope you'd be arriving to conclude."
Such measure of response as he had good-naturedly given her was the
mere frayed edge of a mastering detachment, the copious, impatient
range elsewhere of his true attention. Somehow, however, he still
seemed kind even while, turning his back upon her, he moved off to
look at one of the several, the famous Dedborough pictures--stray
specimens, by every presumption, lost a little in the whole bright
bigness. "'Conclude'?" he echoed as he approached a significantly small
canvas. "You ladies want to get there before the road's so much as laid
or the country's safe! Do you know what this here is?" he at once went
on.
"Oh, you can't have that!" she cried as with full authority--"and you

must really understand that you can't have everything. You mustn't
expect to ravage Dedborough."
He had his nose meanwhile close to the picture. "I guess it's a bogus
Cuyp--but I know Lord Theign has things. He won't do business?"
"He's not in the least, and can never be, in my tight place," Lady
Sandgate replied; "but he's as proud as he's kind, dear man, and as solid
as he's proud; so that if you came down under a different impression--!"
Well, she could only exhale the folly of his error with an unction that
represented, whatever he might think of it, all her competence to
answer for their host.
He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted
from prior dispositions. "I came on an understanding that I should find
my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction,
kindly let me look round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I
knocked at your door----"
"For another look," she quickly interposed, "at my Lawrence?"
"For another look at you, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother
wasn't required. Informed you were here, and struck with the
coincidence of my being myself presently due," he went on, "I
despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits."
"You don't keep them up, you depress them to anguish," she almost
passionately protested, "when you don't tell me you'll treat!"
He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently
of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so
hungry a woman. "Well, if it's a question of your otherwise suffering
torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?"
"Dear Mr. Bender, she's in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for
interviews, and you may have," Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, "as
many as you like."

"Oh, you must be there to protect me!"
"Then as soon as I return----!"
"Well,"--it clearly cost him little to say--"I'll come right round."
She joyously registered the vow. "Only meanwhile then, please, never a
word!"
"Never a word, certainly. But where all this time," Mr. Bender asked,
"is Lord John?"
Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young
woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the
doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle,
stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed