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“One thing’s very certain,” | Theign | creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!”<|quote|>“One thing’s very certain,”</|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- | and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!”<|quote|>“One thing’s very certain,”</|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my | chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!”<|quote|>“One thing’s very certain,”</|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I | her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!”<|quote|>“One thing’s very certain,”</|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very | adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!”<|quote|>“One thing’s very certain,”</|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young | much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!”<|quote|>“One thing’s very certain,”</|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, | is exactly what I mean,” Lord Theign asseverated-- “at the expense of my modest claim to regulate my behaviour by my own standards. There you perfectly _are_ about the man, and it’s precisely what I say--that he’s to hustle and harry me _because_ he’s a money-monster: which I never for a moment dreamed of, please understand, when I let you, John, thrust him at me as a pecuniary resource at Dedborough. I didn’t put my property on view that _he_ might blow about it------!” “No, if you like it,” Lady Sandgate returned; “but you certainly didn’t so arrange” --she seemed to think her point somehow would help-- “that you might blow about it yourself!” “Nobody wants to ‘blow,’” Lord John more stoutly interposed, “either hot or cold, I take it; but I really don’t see the harm of Bender’s liking to be known for the scale of his transactions--actual or merely imputed even, if you will; since that scale is really so magnificent.” Lady Sandgate half accepted, half qualified this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!”<|quote|>“One thing’s very certain,”</|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from | grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!”<|quote|>“One thing’s very certain,”</|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you | The Outcry |
Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- | No speaker | extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,”<|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--</|quote|>“that the thought of my | dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,”<|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--</|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does | unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,”<|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--</|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door | wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,”<|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--</|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put | he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,”<|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--</|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it | blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,”<|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--</|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of | mean,” Lord Theign asseverated-- “at the expense of my modest claim to regulate my behaviour by my own standards. There you perfectly _are_ about the man, and it’s precisely what I say--that he’s to hustle and harry me _because_ he’s a money-monster: which I never for a moment dreamed of, please understand, when I let you, John, thrust him at me as a pecuniary resource at Dedborough. I didn’t put my property on view that _he_ might blow about it------!” “No, if you like it,” Lady Sandgate returned; “but you certainly didn’t so arrange” --she seemed to think her point somehow would help-- “that you might blow about it yourself!” “Nobody wants to ‘blow,’” Lord John more stoutly interposed, “either hot or cold, I take it; but I really don’t see the harm of Bender’s liking to be known for the scale of his transactions--actual or merely imputed even, if you will; since that scale is really so magnificent.” Lady Sandgate half accepted, half qualified this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,”<|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--</|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and | adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,”<|quote|>Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--</|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought | The Outcry |
“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” | Theign | Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--<|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”</|quote|>He turned with the attraction | extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--<|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”</|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one | Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--<|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”</|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show | her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--<|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”</|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the | his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--<|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”</|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than | Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--<|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”</|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of | the expense of my modest claim to regulate my behaviour by my own standards. There you perfectly _are_ about the man, and it’s precisely what I say--that he’s to hustle and harry me _because_ he’s a money-monster: which I never for a moment dreamed of, please understand, when I let you, John, thrust him at me as a pecuniary resource at Dedborough. I didn’t put my property on view that _he_ might blow about it------!” “No, if you like it,” Lady Sandgate returned; “but you certainly didn’t so arrange” --she seemed to think her point somehow would help-- “that you might blow about it yourself!” “Nobody wants to ‘blow,’” Lord John more stoutly interposed, “either hot or cold, I take it; but I really don’t see the harm of Bender’s liking to be known for the scale of his transactions--actual or merely imputed even, if you will; since that scale is really so magnificent.” Lady Sandgate half accepted, half qualified this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--<|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”</|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I | reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued--<|quote|>“that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”</|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The | The Outcry |
He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. | No speaker | have the show immediately stopped?”<|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.</|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, | the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”<|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.</|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just | there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”<|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.</|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion | reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”<|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.</|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: | had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”<|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.</|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to | dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”<|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.</|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the | pecuniary resource at Dedborough. I didn’t put my property on view that _he_ might blow about it------!” “No, if you like it,” Lady Sandgate returned; “but you certainly didn’t so arrange” --she seemed to think her point somehow would help-- “that you might blow about it yourself!” “Nobody wants to ‘blow,’” Lord John more stoutly interposed, “either hot or cold, I take it; but I really don’t see the harm of Bender’s liking to be known for the scale of his transactions--actual or merely imputed even, if you will; since that scale is really so magnificent.” Lady Sandgate half accepted, half qualified this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”<|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.</|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, | _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?”<|quote|>He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.</|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: | The Outcry |
“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” | Theign | his listeners to the other.<|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”</|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the | this idea from one of his listeners to the other.<|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”</|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate | it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.<|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”</|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, | into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.<|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”</|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight | should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.<|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”</|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked | of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.<|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”</|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do | it------!” “No, if you like it,” Lady Sandgate returned; “but you certainly didn’t so arrange” --she seemed to think her point somehow would help-- “that you might blow about it yourself!” “Nobody wants to ‘blow,’” Lord John more stoutly interposed, “either hot or cold, I take it; but I really don’t see the harm of Bender’s liking to be known for the scale of his transactions--actual or merely imputed even, if you will; since that scale is really so magnificent.” Lady Sandgate half accepted, half qualified this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.<|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”</|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than | companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other.<|quote|>“It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”</|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have | The Outcry |
“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” | Lady Sandgate | as I choose with it.”<|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”</|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it | surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”<|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”</|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it | relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”<|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”</|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if | of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”<|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”</|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man | yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”<|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”</|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have | to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”<|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”</|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked | --she seemed to think her point somehow would help-- “that you might blow about it yourself!” “Nobody wants to ‘blow,’” Lord John more stoutly interposed, “either hot or cold, I take it; but I really don’t see the harm of Bender’s liking to be known for the scale of his transactions--actual or merely imputed even, if you will; since that scale is really so magnificent.” Lady Sandgate half accepted, half qualified this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”<|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”</|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, | in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.”<|quote|>“Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”</|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and | The Outcry |
--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. | No speaker | isn’t that the very point?”<|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.</|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much | choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”<|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.</|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked | is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”<|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.</|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it | Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”<|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.</|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and | apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”<|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.</|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as | a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”<|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.</|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, | would help-- “that you might blow about it yourself!” “Nobody wants to ‘blow,’” Lord John more stoutly interposed, “either hot or cold, I take it; but I really don’t see the harm of Bender’s liking to be known for the scale of his transactions--actual or merely imputed even, if you will; since that scale is really so magnificent.” Lady Sandgate half accepted, half qualified this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”<|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.</|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always | army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?”<|quote|>--and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.</|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. | The Outcry |
“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” | Lady Sandgate | put it to Lord John.<|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”</|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in | very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.<|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”</|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but | the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.<|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”</|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it | my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.<|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”</|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of | away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.<|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”</|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. | a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.<|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”</|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. | yourself!” “Nobody wants to ‘blow,’” Lord John more stoutly interposed, “either hot or cold, I take it; but I really don’t see the harm of Bender’s liking to be known for the scale of his transactions--actual or merely imputed even, if you will; since that scale is really so magnificent.” Lady Sandgate half accepted, half qualified this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.<|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”</|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element | some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John.<|quote|>“Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”</|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those | The Outcry |
Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. | No speaker | show much more than his?”<|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.</|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, | Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”<|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.</|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it | attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”<|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.</|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the | on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”<|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.</|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord | only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”<|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.</|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. | coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”<|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.</|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he | stoutly interposed, “either hot or cold, I take it; but I really don’t see the harm of Bender’s liking to be known for the scale of his transactions--actual or merely imputed even, if you will; since that scale is really so magnificent.” Lady Sandgate half accepted, half qualified this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”<|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.</|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense | you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?”<|quote|>Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.</|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, | The Outcry |
“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” | Theign | followed up his happy thought.<|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”</|quote|>And it took his lordship’s | Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.<|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”</|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. | very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.<|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”</|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the | I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.<|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”</|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked | as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.<|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”</|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. | watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.<|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”</|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- | if you will; since that scale is really so magnificent.” Lady Sandgate half accepted, half qualified this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.<|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”</|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, | he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought.<|quote|>“Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”</|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some | The Outcry |
And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. | No speaker | there’s all the more reason!”<|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.</|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go | if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”<|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.</|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, | than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”<|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.</|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm | with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”<|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.</|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am | the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”<|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.</|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” | come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”<|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.</|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for | this plea. “The only question perhaps is why he doesn’t try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”<|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.</|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, | sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!”<|quote|>And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.</|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. | The Outcry |
“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” | Theign | inspiration no longer to flower.<|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”</|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?” the young | And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.<|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”</|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it | made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.<|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”</|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ | listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.<|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”</|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard | Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.<|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”</|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young | it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.<|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”</|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you | try for some precious work that somebody--less delicious than dear Theign--_can_ be persuaded on bended knees to accept a hundred thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.<|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”</|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, | turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower.<|quote|>“See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”</|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you | The Outcry |
“‘Shut straight down’?” | Lord John | me to shut straight down!”<|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?”</|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed. | please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”<|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?”</|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up | up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”<|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?”</|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor | but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”<|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?”</|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might | extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”<|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?”</|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in | beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”<|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?”</|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” | thousand for.” “‘Try’ for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”<|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?”</|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that | to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!”<|quote|>“‘Shut straight down’?”</|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such | The Outcry |
the young man abhorrently echoed. | No speaker | straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?”<|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed.</|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up | them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?”<|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed.</|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The | thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?”<|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed.</|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in | the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?”<|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed.</|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at | very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?”<|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed.</|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, | On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?”<|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed.</|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for | for one?” --her younger visitor took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?”<|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed.</|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how | at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?”<|quote|>the young man abhorrently echoed.</|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at | The Outcry |
“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” | Theign | the young man abhorrently echoed.<|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”</|quote|>The more the entertainer of | straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed.<|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”</|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there | show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed.<|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”</|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less | Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed.<|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”</|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to | heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed.<|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”</|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made | fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed.<|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”</|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What | took it up while her elder more attentively watched him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed.<|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”</|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? | which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed.<|quote|>“Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”</|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with | The Outcry |
The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. | No speaker | up and end it: see?”<|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.</|quote|>“Have the picture removed from | echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”<|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.</|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” | the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”<|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.</|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord | show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”<|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.</|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s | view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”<|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.</|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved | others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”<|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.</|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; | him. “That was exactly what he did try for when he pressed you so hard in vain for the great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”<|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.</|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it | wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?”<|quote|>The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.</|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate | The Outcry |
“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” | Theign | clearly took on for him.<|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”</|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of | there the more charm it clearly took on for him.<|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”</|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. | round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.<|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”</|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he | and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.<|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”</|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, | that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.<|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”</|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the | tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.<|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”</|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if | great Sir Joshua.” “Oh well, he mustn’t come back to _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.<|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”</|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof | property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him.<|quote|>“Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”</|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to | The Outcry |
“You seriously ask _that_ of me!” | Lord John | view and the incident closed.”<|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!”</|quote|>poor Lord John quavered. “Why | “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”<|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!”</|quote|>poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? | to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”<|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!”</|quote|>poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer | the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”<|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!”</|quote|>poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of | I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”<|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!”</|quote|>poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if | I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”<|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!”</|quote|>poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own | _that_--must he, Theign?” her ladyship cooed. That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”<|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!”</|quote|>poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen | and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.”<|quote|>“You seriously ask _that_ of me!”</|quote|>poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at | The Outcry |
poor Lord John quavered. | No speaker | seriously ask _that_ of me!”<|quote|>poor Lord John quavered.</|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t | and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!”<|quote|>poor Lord John quavered.</|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot | down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!”<|quote|>poor Lord John quavered.</|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have | happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!”<|quote|>poor Lord John quavered.</|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter | damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!”<|quote|>poor Lord John quavered.</|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; | I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!”<|quote|>poor Lord John quavered.</|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he | That personage failed to reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!”<|quote|>poor Lord John quavered.</|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a | ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!”<|quote|>poor Lord John quavered.</|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful | The Outcry |
“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” | Theign | me!” poor Lord John quavered.<|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”</|quote|>“What then am I to | “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered.<|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”</|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?” Lord John | abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered.<|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”</|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into | it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered.<|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”</|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are | is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered.<|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”</|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he | --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered.<|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”</|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural | reply, so that Lord John went on, unconscious apparently of the still more suspicious study to which he exposed himself. “Besides which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered.<|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”</|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate | pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered.<|quote|>“Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”</|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view | The Outcry |
“What then am I to say to them?” | Lord John | a month ago at Dedborough.”<|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?”</|quote|>Lord John spoke but after | than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”<|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?”</|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which | the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”<|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?”</|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that | longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”<|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?”</|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this | one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”<|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?”</|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage | for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”<|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?”</|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want | which there _are_ no things of that magnitude knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”<|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?”</|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to | more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.”<|quote|>“What then am I to say to them?”</|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so | The Outcry |
Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. | No speaker | I to say to them?”<|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.</|quote|>“Say anything that comes into | at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?”<|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.</|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t | him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?”<|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.</|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are | right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?”<|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.</|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever | _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?”<|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.</|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. | hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?”<|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.</|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate | knocking about, don’t you know?--they’ve _got_ to be worked up first if they’re to reach the grand publicity of the Figure! Would you mind,” he continued to his noble monitor, “an agreement on some such basis as _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?”<|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.</|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old | “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?”<|quote|>Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.</|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign | The Outcry |
“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” | Theign | have done with the matter.<|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the | replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.<|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign | a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.<|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force | that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.<|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one | Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.<|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he | only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.<|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the | _this_?--that you shall resign yourself to the biggest equivalent you’ll squeamishly consent to take, if it’s at the same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.<|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of | one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter.<|quote|>“Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so | The Outcry |
Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. | No speaker | there’s anything else _for_ you!”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.</|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?” | I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.</|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” | a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.</|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the | from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.</|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that | much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.</|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- | it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.</|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace | same time the smallest he’ll squeamishly consent to offer; but that, that done, you shall leave him free----” Lady Sandgate took it up straight, rounding it off, as their companion only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.</|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door | his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.</|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for | The Outcry |
“Those are absolutely your sentiments?” | Lord John | eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.<|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?”</|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments” | his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.<|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?”</|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this | the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.<|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?”</|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of | of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.<|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?”</|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his | And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.<|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?”</|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” | the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.<|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?”</|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force | only waited. “Leave him free to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.<|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?”</|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured | yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously.<|quote|>“Those are absolutely your sentiments?”</|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always | The Outcry |
“Those are absolutely my sentiments” | Theign | “Those are absolutely your sentiments?”<|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments”</|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this | eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?”<|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments”</|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force | comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?”<|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments”</|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one | at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?”<|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments”</|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his | inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?”<|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments”</|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for | to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?”<|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments”</|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such | to talk about the sum offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?”<|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments”</|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” | it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?”<|quote|>“Those are absolutely my sentiments”</|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your | The Outcry |
--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. | No speaker | “Those are absolutely my sentiments”<|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.</|quote|>“Very well then!” But the | “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments”<|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.</|quote|>“Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a | I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments”<|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.</|quote|>“Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused | I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments”<|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.</|quote|>“Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III | “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments”<|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.</|quote|>“Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So | Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments”<|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.</|quote|>“Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but | offered and the sum taken as practically one and the same?” “Ah, you know,” Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments”<|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.</|quote|>“Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming | Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments”<|quote|>--and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.</|quote|>“Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send | The Outcry |
“Very well then!” | Lord John | force of a physical push.<|quote|>“Very well then!”</|quote|>But the young man, indulging | this out as with the force of a physical push.<|quote|>“Very well then!”</|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly | the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.<|quote|>“Very well then!”</|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, | which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.<|quote|>“Very well then!”</|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear | from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.<|quote|>“Very well then!”</|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great | my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.<|quote|>“Very well then!”</|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility | Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.<|quote|>“Very well then!”</|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his | outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push.<|quote|>“Very well then!”</|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really | The Outcry |
But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. | No speaker | physical push. “Very well then!”<|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.</|quote|>“Not one more day?” Lord | with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!”<|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.</|quote|>“Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. | gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!”<|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.</|quote|>“Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped | only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!”<|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.</|quote|>“Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, | shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!”<|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.</|quote|>“Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll | you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!”<|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.</|quote|>“Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty | “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself--there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which--by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!--a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!”<|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.</|quote|>“Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to | he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!”<|quote|>But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.</|quote|>“Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, | The Outcry |
“Not one more day?” | Lord John | was, of his own wrong.<|quote|>“Not one more day?”</|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him | of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.<|quote|>“Not one more day?”</|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” | my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.<|quote|>“Not one more day?”</|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as | clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.<|quote|>“Not one more day?”</|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity | more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.<|quote|>“Not one more day?”</|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” | every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.<|quote|>“Not one more day?”</|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” | perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.<|quote|>“Not one more day?”</|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant | Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong.<|quote|>“Not one more day?”</|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But | The Outcry |
Lord Theign only waved him away. | No speaker | wrong. “Not one more day?”<|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away.</|quote|>“Not one more hour!” He | it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?”<|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away.</|quote|>“Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this | Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?”<|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away.</|quote|>“Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment | really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?”<|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away.</|quote|>“Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. | took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?”<|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away.</|quote|>“Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then | conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?”<|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away.</|quote|>“Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to | close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?”<|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away.</|quote|>“Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion | flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?”<|quote|>Lord Theign only waved him away.</|quote|>“Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then | The Outcry |
“Not one more hour!” | Theign | Theign only waved him away.<|quote|>“Not one more hour!”</|quote|>He paused at the door, | “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away.<|quote|>“Not one more hour!”</|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if | the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away.<|quote|>“Not one more hour!”</|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his | _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away.<|quote|>“Not one more hour!”</|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too | picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away.<|quote|>“Not one more hour!”</|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused | it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away.<|quote|>“Not one more hour!”</|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which | talking for him and of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away.<|quote|>“Not one more hour!”</|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a | cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away.<|quote|>“Not one more hour!”</|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but | The Outcry |
He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III | No speaker | away. “Not one more hour!”<|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III</|quote|>“He can’t bear to do | Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!”<|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III</|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate | physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!”<|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III</|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you | sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!”<|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III</|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So | and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!”<|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III</|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he | of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!”<|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III</|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time | of him.” Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “_You_ talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job--on a fine ascending scale! Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!”<|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III</|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more | there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!”<|quote|>He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III</|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used | The Outcry |
“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” | Lady Sandgate | departed on his mission. III<|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”</|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to | rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III<|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”</|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord | at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III<|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”</|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” | “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III<|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”</|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any | which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III<|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”</|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” | as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III<|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”</|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, | Has he put you up to that proposition, eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III<|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”</|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. | the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III<|quote|>“He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”</|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep | The Outcry |
Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. | No speaker | to do it, poor man!”<|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.</|quote|>“I dare say not!” --Lord | mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”<|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.</|quote|>“I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity | for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”<|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.</|quote|>“I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank | in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”<|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.</|quote|>“I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with | might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”<|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.</|quote|>“I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate | that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”<|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.</|quote|>“I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element | eh? _Do_ you get a handsome percentage and _are_ you to make a good thing of it?” The young man coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”<|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.</|quote|>“I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” | in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!”<|quote|>Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.</|quote|>“I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you | The Outcry |
“I dare say not!” | Theign | dashed out to Bond Street.<|quote|>“I dare say not!”</|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the | John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.<|quote|>“I dare say not!”</|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little | differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.<|quote|>“I dare say not!”</|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She | it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.<|quote|>“I dare say not!”</|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely | “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.<|quote|>“I dare say not!”</|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, | Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.<|quote|>“I dare say not!”</|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever | coloured under this stinging pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.<|quote|>“I dare say not!”</|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further | The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street.<|quote|>“I dare say not!”</|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as | The Outcry |
--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. | No speaker | Street. “I dare say not!”<|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.</|quote|>“But he goes too far, | pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!”<|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.</|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears | he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!”<|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.</|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly | own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!”<|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.</|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then | into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!”<|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.</|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven | in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!”<|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.</|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken | pleasantry--whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!”<|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.</|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and | _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!”<|quote|>--Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.</|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently | The Outcry |
“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” | Theign | self-expression, made little of that.<|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”</|quote|>--and he glanced at the | flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.<|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”</|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to | and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.<|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”</|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any | “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.<|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”</|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own | _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.<|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”</|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should | at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.<|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”</|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the | worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.<|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”</|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed | poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that.<|quote|>“But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”</|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from | The Outcry |
--and he glanced at the clock-- | No speaker | clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”<|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock--</|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.” | far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”<|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock--</|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady | Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”<|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock--</|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for | for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”<|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock--</|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for | positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”<|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock--</|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would | happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”<|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock--</|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for | on his watch. “As he’s to come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”<|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock--</|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but | the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore”<|quote|>--and he glanced at the clock--</|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, | The Outcry |
“I must go to Kitty.” | Theign | he glanced at the clock--<|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.”</|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady | the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock--<|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.”</|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you | remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock--<|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.”</|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it | another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock--<|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.”</|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one | to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock--<|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.”</|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was | show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock--<|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.”</|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand | come to you himself--and I don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock--<|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.”</|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, | to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock--<|quote|>“I must go to Kitty.”</|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always | The Outcry |
“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” | Lady Sandgate | “I must go to Kitty.”<|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank | he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.”<|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never | had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.”<|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What | with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.”<|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as | then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.”<|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line | it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.”<|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking | don’t know why the mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.”<|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. | view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.”<|quote|>“Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always | The Outcry |
Lady Sandgate opined-- | No speaker | Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined--</|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_” | clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined--</|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for | dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined--</|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to | of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined--</|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back | friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined--</|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace | the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined--</|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, | mischief he doesn’t come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined--</|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if | up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate opined--</|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case | The Outcry |
“won’t thank you for _that!_” | Lady Sandgate | Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined--<|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_”</|quote|>“She never thanks me for | go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined--<|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_”</|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of | Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined--<|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_”</|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why | waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined--<|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_”</|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, | “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined--<|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_”</|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force | And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined--<|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_”</|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, | come!--he will answer you that graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined--<|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_”</|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as | and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined--<|quote|>“won’t thank you for _that!_”</|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor | The Outcry |
“She never thanks me for anything” | Theign | “won’t thank you for _that!_”<|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything”</|quote|>--and the fact of his | Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_”<|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything”</|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to | not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_”<|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything”</|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own | performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_”<|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything”</|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean | “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_”<|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything”</|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language | inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_”<|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything”</|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for | graceful question.” “Will he answer it,” Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_”<|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything”</|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so | to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_”<|quote|>“She never thanks me for anything”</|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain | The Outcry |
--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. | No speaker | never thanks me for anything”<|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.</|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!” | thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything”<|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.</|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” | felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything”<|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.</|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at | as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything”<|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.</|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” | Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything”<|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.</|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could | here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything”<|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.</|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I | Lord Theign asked, “with the veracity that the suggestion you’ve just made on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything”<|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.</|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your | Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything”<|quote|>--and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.</|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he | The Outcry |
“So it’s no great loss!” | Theign | added here to his bitterness.<|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!”</|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,” | fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.<|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!”</|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for | you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.<|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!”</|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know | III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.<|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!”</|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does | push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.<|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!”</|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with | them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.<|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!”</|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on | on his behalf represents him as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.<|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!”</|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me | that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness.<|quote|>“So it’s no great loss!”</|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my | The Outcry |
“Won’t you at any rate,” | Lady Sandgate | “So it’s no great loss!”<|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,”</|quote|>his hostess asked, “wait for | added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!”<|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,”</|quote|>his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it | the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!”<|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,”</|quote|>his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” | do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!”<|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,”</|quote|>his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. | the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!”<|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,”</|quote|>his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us | straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!”<|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,”</|quote|>his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that | as so beautifully adhering to?” On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!”<|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,”</|quote|>his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order | Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!”<|quote|>“Won’t you at any rate,”</|quote|>his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than | The Outcry |
his hostess asked, | No speaker | “Won’t you at any rate,”<|quote|>his hostess asked,</|quote|>“wait for Bender?” His lordship | “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,”<|quote|>his hostess asked,</|quote|>“wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. | he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,”<|quote|>his hostess asked,</|quote|>“wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he | Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,”<|quote|>his hostess asked,</|quote|>“wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she | a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,”<|quote|>his hostess asked,</|quote|>“wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what | the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,”<|quote|>his hostess asked,</|quote|>“wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. | On which he again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,”<|quote|>his hostess asked,</|quote|>“wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our | entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,”<|quote|>his hostess asked,</|quote|>“wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever | The Outcry |
“wait for Bender?” | Lady Sandgate | any rate,” his hostess asked,<|quote|>“wait for Bender?”</|quote|>His lordship cast it to | great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked,<|quote|>“wait for Bender?”</|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I | the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked,<|quote|>“wait for Bender?”</|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his | to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked,<|quote|>“wait for Bender?”</|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He | fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked,<|quote|>“wait for Bender?”</|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been | abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked,<|quote|>“wait for Bender?”</|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much | again quite fiercely turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked,<|quote|>“wait for Bender?”</|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the | thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked,<|quote|>“wait for Bender?”</|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and | The Outcry |
His lordship cast it to the winds. | No speaker | hostess asked, “wait for Bender?”<|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds.</|quote|>“What have I to do | you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?”<|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds.</|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely | must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?”<|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds.</|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered | guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?”<|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds.</|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how | of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?”<|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds.</|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that | it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?”<|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds.</|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such | turned his back and recovered his detachment, the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?”<|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds.</|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it | John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?”<|quote|>His lordship cast it to the winds.</|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for | The Outcry |
“What have I to do with him now?” | Theign | cast it to the winds.<|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?”</|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept | “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds.<|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?”</|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign | wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds.<|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?”</|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my | pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds.<|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?”</|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an | made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds.<|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?”</|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I | see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds.<|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?”</|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are | the others giving way behind him to a blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds.<|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?”</|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility | me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds.<|quote|>“What have I to do with him now?”</|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of | The Outcry |
“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” | Lady Sandgate | to do with him now?”<|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”</|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and | the winds. “What have I to do with him now?”<|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”</|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused | _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?”<|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”</|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace | say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?”<|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”</|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so | of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?”<|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”</|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” | held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?”<|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”</|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into | blanker dismay. Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?”<|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”</|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost | then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?”<|quote|>“Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”</|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, | The Outcry |
Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: | No speaker | he’ll accept your own price--!”<|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:</|quote|>“Hanged if I know what | him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”<|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:</|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After | the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”<|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:</|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he | of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”<|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:</|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect | Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”<|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:</|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently | took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”<|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:</|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as | however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”<|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:</|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you | And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!”<|quote|>Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:</|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him | The Outcry |
“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” | Theign | if fairly amused at himself:<|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”</|quote|>After which he went for | thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:<|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”</|quote|>After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one | it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:<|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”</|quote|>After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. | see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:<|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”</|quote|>After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come | at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:<|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”</|quote|>After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for | incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:<|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”</|quote|>After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of | as if I were urging some abomination.” “Then I’ll tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:<|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”</|quote|>After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a | John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself:<|quote|>“Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”</|quote|>After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him | The Outcry |
After which he went for his hat. | No speaker | what _is_ my own price!”<|quote|>After which he went for his hat.</|quote|>“But there’s one thing,” he | himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”<|quote|>After which he went for his hat.</|quote|>“But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back | his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”<|quote|>After which he went for his hat.</|quote|>“But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept | he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”<|quote|>After which he went for his hat.</|quote|>“But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then | some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”<|quote|>After which he went for his hat.</|quote|>“But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, | Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”<|quote|>After which he went for his hat.</|quote|>“But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell | tell you why!” --and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”<|quote|>After which he went for his hat.</|quote|>“But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” | have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!”<|quote|>After which he went for his hat.</|quote|>“But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond | The Outcry |
“But there’s one thing,” | Theign | he went for his hat.<|quote|>“But there’s one thing,”</|quote|>he remembered as he came | my own price!” After which he went for his hat.<|quote|>“But there’s one thing,”</|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my | lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat.<|quote|>“But there’s one thing,”</|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. | go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat.<|quote|>“But there’s one thing,”</|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly | and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat.<|quote|>“But there’s one thing,”</|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus | shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat.<|quote|>“But there’s one thing,”</|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger | upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat.<|quote|>“But there’s one thing,”</|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship | after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat.<|quote|>“But there’s one thing,”</|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of | The Outcry |
he remembered as he came back with it: | No speaker | hat. “But there’s one thing,”<|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it:</|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural | which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,”<|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it:</|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace | the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,”<|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it:</|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate | what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,”<|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it:</|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply | the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,”<|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it:</|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the | jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,”<|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it:</|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you | the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,”<|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it:</|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done | me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,”<|quote|>he remembered as he came back with it:</|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and | The Outcry |
“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” | Theign | he came back with it:<|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”</|quote|>“If you mean Grace and | one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it:<|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”</|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send | him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it:<|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”</|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even | you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it:<|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”</|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation | differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it:<|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”</|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can | a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it:<|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”</|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as | cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it:<|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”</|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve | dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it:<|quote|>“where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”</|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow | The Outcry |
“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” | Lady Sandgate | my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”<|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”</|quote|>“Not now” --he bethought himself. | came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”<|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”</|quote|>“Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that | accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”<|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”</|quote|>“Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to | me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”<|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”</|quote|>“Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” | on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”<|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”</|quote|>“Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at | then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”<|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”</|quote|>“Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the | good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”<|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”</|quote|>“Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness | choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?”<|quote|>“If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”</|quote|>“Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old | The Outcry |
“Not now” | Theign | I’ll send and find out.”<|quote|>“Not now”</|quote|>--he bethought himself. “But does | Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”<|quote|>“Not now”</|quote|>--he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. | amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”<|quote|>“Not now”</|quote|>--he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I | his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”<|quote|>“Not now”</|quote|>--he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could | his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”<|quote|>“Not now”</|quote|>--he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same | long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”<|quote|>“Not now”</|quote|>--he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I | the interest of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”<|quote|>“Not now”</|quote|>--he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this | to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.”<|quote|>“Not now”</|quote|>--he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw | The Outcry |
--he bethought himself. | No speaker | and find out.” “Not now”<|quote|>--he bethought himself.</|quote|>“But does she _see_ that | really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now”<|quote|>--he bethought himself.</|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she | himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now”<|quote|>--he bethought himself.</|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of | “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now”<|quote|>--he bethought himself.</|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the | III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now”<|quote|>--he bethought himself.</|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee | during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now”<|quote|>--he bethought himself.</|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on | of such equivocations!” Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now”<|quote|>--he bethought himself.</|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In | his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now”<|quote|>--he bethought himself.</|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” | The Outcry |
“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” | Theign | “Not now” --he bethought himself.<|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”</|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees | I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself.<|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”</|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes | I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself.<|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”</|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should | great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself.<|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”</|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets | bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself.<|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”</|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, | had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself.<|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”</|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went | Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself.<|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”</|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may | up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself.<|quote|>“But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”</|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow | The Outcry |
“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” | Lady Sandgate | does she _see_ that chatterbox?”<|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”</|quote|>He kept his eyes on | now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”<|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”</|quote|>He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has | price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”<|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”</|quote|>He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would | rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”<|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”</|quote|>He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always | Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”<|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”</|quote|>He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I | might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”<|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”</|quote|>He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive | wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”<|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”</|quote|>He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take | see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?”<|quote|>“Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”</|quote|>He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she | The Outcry |
He kept his eyes on her. | No speaker | Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”<|quote|>He kept his eyes on her.</|quote|>“Then how far has it | she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”<|quote|>He kept his eyes on her.</|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an | his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”<|quote|>He kept his eyes on her.</|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly | Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”<|quote|>He kept his eyes on her.</|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, | remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”<|quote|>He kept his eyes on her.</|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always | his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”<|quote|>He kept his eyes on her.</|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he | turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”<|quote|>He kept his eyes on her.</|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, | his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.”<|quote|>He kept his eyes on her.</|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if | The Outcry |
“Then how far has it gone?” | Theign | kept his eyes on her.<|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. | Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her.<|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I | he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her.<|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace | the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her.<|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t | under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her.<|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more | if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her.<|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear | away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her.<|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. | clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her.<|quote|>“Then how far has it gone?”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was | The Outcry |
Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. | No speaker | how far has it gone?”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.</|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I | his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.</|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d | with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.</|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force | do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.</|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel | Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.</|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve | the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.</|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less | man who only longs to smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.</|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ | protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.</|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly | The Outcry |
“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” | Lady Sandgate | Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.<|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”</|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to | how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.<|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”</|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of | _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.<|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”</|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, | surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.<|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”</|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He | not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.<|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”</|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, | comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.<|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”</|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of | smother you in gold?” Her dear friend, however, had lost patience with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.<|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”</|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, | wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment.<|quote|>“Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”</|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant | The Outcry |
“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” | Theign | so far as they’d like.”<|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”</|quote|>“I suspect them of it. | not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”<|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”</|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should | I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”<|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”</|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He | and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”<|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”</|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which | of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”<|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”</|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as | anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”<|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”</|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if | with her levity. “Give it away--just for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”<|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”</|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, | during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.”<|quote|>“They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”</|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would | The Outcry |
“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” | Lady Sandgate | ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”<|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”</|quote|>she asked, “would you then | far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”<|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”</|quote|>she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. | now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”<|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”</|quote|>she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from | at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”<|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”</|quote|>she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole | far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”<|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”</|quote|>she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of | sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”<|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”</|quote|>she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going | for a luxury of protest and a stoppage of chatter--to some cause as unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”<|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”</|quote|>she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently | it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?”<|quote|>“I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”</|quote|>she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a | The Outcry |
she asked, | No speaker | it should come to that,”<|quote|>she asked,</|quote|>“would you then take?” He | of it. What line, if it should come to that,”<|quote|>she asked,</|quote|>“would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line | she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”<|quote|>she asked,</|quote|>“would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve | he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”<|quote|>she asked,</|quote|>“would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of | at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”<|quote|>she asked,</|quote|>“would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, | latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”<|quote|>she asked,</|quote|>“would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to | unlike as possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”<|quote|>she asked,</|quote|>“would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his | your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,”<|quote|>she asked,</|quote|>“would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more | The Outcry |
“would you then take?” | Lady Sandgate | come to that,” she asked,<|quote|>“would you then take?”</|quote|>He was perfectly prompt. “The | What line, if it should come to that,” she asked,<|quote|>“would you then take?”</|quote|>He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s | him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked,<|quote|>“would you then take?”</|quote|>He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; | for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked,<|quote|>“would you then take?”</|quote|>He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my | clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked,<|quote|>“would you then take?”</|quote|>He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the | still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked,<|quote|>“would you then take?”</|quote|>He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice | possible that of Mr. Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked,<|quote|>“would you then take?”</|quote|>He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will | force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked,<|quote|>“would you then take?”</|quote|>He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a | The Outcry |
He was perfectly prompt. | No speaker | asked, “would you then take?”<|quote|>He was perfectly prompt.</|quote|>“The line that for Grace | should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?”<|quote|>He was perfectly prompt.</|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force | eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?”<|quote|>He was perfectly prompt.</|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down | there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?”<|quote|>He was perfectly prompt.</|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more | to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?”<|quote|>He was perfectly prompt.</|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing | displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?”<|quote|>He was perfectly prompt.</|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who | Bender’s power of sound and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?”<|quote|>He was perfectly prompt.</|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door | anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?”<|quote|>He was perfectly prompt.</|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree | The Outcry |
“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” | Theign | take?” He was perfectly prompt.<|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”</|quote|>The force of her deprecation | she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt.<|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”</|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified | how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt.<|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”</|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, | remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt.<|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”</|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra | Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt.<|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”</|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, | eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt.<|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”</|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not | and his splendid reputation: to the Public, to the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt.<|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”</|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then | man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt.<|quote|>“The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”</|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, | The Outcry |
The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. | No speaker | for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”<|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.</|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as | perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”<|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.</|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view | an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”<|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.</|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. | my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”<|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.</|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on | for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”<|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.</|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw | your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”<|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.</|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave | the Authorities, to the Thingumbob, to the Nation!” Lady Sandgate broke into horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”<|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.</|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of | what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.”<|quote|>The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.</|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession | The Outcry |
“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” | Theign | language was qualified by tact.<|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”</|quote|>He could but view the | of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.<|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”</|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It | like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.<|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”</|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague | her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.<|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”</|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at | his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.<|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”</|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean | out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.<|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”</|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady | horror while Lord John stood sombre and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.<|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”</|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange | month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact.<|quote|>“Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”</|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps | The Outcry |
He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. | No speaker | darling, as dreadful as _that?_”<|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.</|quote|>“It lets us so down--from | was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”<|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.</|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and | marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”<|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.</|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as | “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”<|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.</|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her | his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”<|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.</|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, | a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”<|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.</|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see | and stupefied. “Ah, my dear creature, you’ve flights of extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”<|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.</|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much | him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_”<|quote|>He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.</|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of | The Outcry |
“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” | Theign | the possibility with dark resentment.<|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”</|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still | _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.<|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”</|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” | it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.<|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”</|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the | that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.<|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”</|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element | at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.<|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”</|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of | man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.<|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”</|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She | extravagance----!” “One thing’s very certain,” Lord Theign quite heedlessly pursued-- “that the thought of my property on view there does give intolerably on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.<|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”</|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, | significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment.<|quote|>“It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”</|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her | The Outcry |
“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” | Lady Sandgate | amazed you don’t feel it!”<|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”</|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed | down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”<|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”</|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which | ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”<|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”</|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could | overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”<|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”</|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with | him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”<|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”</|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into | it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”<|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”</|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant | on my nerves, more and more every minute that I’m conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”<|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”</|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit | dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!”<|quote|>“Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”</|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of | The Outcry |
she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. | No speaker | plenty to keep you up!”<|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.</|quote|>“Well, my dear,” he thus | “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”<|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.</|quote|>“Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall | qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”<|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.</|quote|>“Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think | far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”<|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.</|quote|>“Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme | Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”<|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.</|quote|>“Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you | Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”<|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.</|quote|>“Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened | conscious of it; so that, hang it, if one thinks of it, why shouldn’t I, for my relief, do again, damme, _what I like_?--that is bang the door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”<|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.</|quote|>“Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished | clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!”<|quote|>she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.</|quote|>“Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured | The Outcry |
“Well, my dear,” | Theign | whole yearning of his nature.<|quote|>“Well, my dear,”</|quote|>he thus more blandly professed, | as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.<|quote|>“Well, my dear,”</|quote|>he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the | and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.<|quote|>“Well, my dear,”</|quote|>he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a | then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.<|quote|>“Well, my dear,”</|quote|>he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive | hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.<|quote|>“Well, my dear,”</|quote|>he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m | prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.<|quote|>“Well, my dear,”</|quote|>he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps | door in their faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.<|quote|>“Well, my dear,”</|quote|>he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous | It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature.<|quote|>“Well, my dear,”</|quote|>he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, | The Outcry |
he thus more blandly professed, | No speaker | his nature. “Well, my dear,”<|quote|>he thus more blandly professed,</|quote|>“I shall need all the | for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,”<|quote|>he thus more blandly professed,</|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection | down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,”<|quote|>he thus more blandly professed,</|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but | was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,”<|quote|>he thus more blandly professed,</|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking | one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,”<|quote|>he thus more blandly professed,</|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to | engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,”<|quote|>he thus more blandly professed,</|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went | faces, have the show immediately stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,”<|quote|>he thus more blandly professed,</|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to | clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,”<|quote|>he thus more blandly professed,</|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, | The Outcry |
“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” | Theign | he thus more blandly professed,<|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”</|quote|>If nothing could have been, | his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed,<|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”</|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing | amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed,<|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”</|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a | that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed,<|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”</|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of | he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed,<|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”</|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if | of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed,<|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”</|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d | stopped?” He turned with the attraction of this idea from one of his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed,<|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”</|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed | are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed,<|quote|>“I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”</|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She | The Outcry |
If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. | No speaker | that your affection can supply.”<|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.</|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, | need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”<|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.</|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, | keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”<|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.</|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with | such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”<|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.</|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I | you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”<|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.</|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I | his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”<|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.</|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with | his listeners to the other. “It’s _my_ show--it isn’t Bender’s, surely!--and I can do just as I choose with it.” “Ah, but isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”<|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.</|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d | his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.”<|quote|>If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.</|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ | The Outcry |
“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” | Lady Sandgate | more pleasing than her modesty.<|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”</|quote|>He sighed, none the less, | the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.<|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”</|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts | provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.<|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”</|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why | lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.<|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”</|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow | chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.<|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”</|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open | man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.<|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”</|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, | isn’t that the very point?” --and Lady Sandgate put it to Lord John. “Isn’t it Bender’s show much more than his?” Her invoked authority, however, in answer to this, made but a motion of disappointment and disgust at so much rank folly--while Lord Theign, on the other hand, followed up his happy thought. “Then if it’s Bender’s show, or if he claims it is, there’s all the more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.<|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”</|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from | his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty.<|quote|>“Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”</|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt | The Outcry |
He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. | No speaker | man doing and taking things.”<|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.</|quote|>“If you mean that I | supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”<|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.</|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on | any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”<|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.</|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the | shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”<|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.</|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly | for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”<|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.</|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of | Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”<|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.</|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still | more reason!” And it took his lordship’s inspiration no longer to flower. “See here, John--do this: go right round there this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”<|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.</|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with | pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.”<|quote|>He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.</|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his | The Outcry |
“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” | Theign | he foresaw on these resolutions.<|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”</|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,” | of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.<|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”</|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there | reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.<|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”</|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear | nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.<|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”</|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door | dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.<|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”</|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch | added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.<|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”</|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it | this moment, please, and tell them from me to shut straight down!” “‘Shut straight down’?” the young man abhorrently echoed. “Stop it _to-night_--wind it up and end it: see?” The more the entertainer of that vision held it there the more charm it clearly took on for him. “Have the picture removed from view and the incident closed.” “You seriously ask _that_ of me!” poor Lord John quavered. “Why in the world shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly lot less than you asked of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.<|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”</|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be | force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions.<|quote|>“If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”</|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve | The Outcry |
“Do you find Mr. Crimble,” | Lady Sandgate | helplessly to swallow the dose?”<|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there | me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”<|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to | name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”<|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less | none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”<|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured | all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”<|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the | with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”<|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, | of me a month ago at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”<|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a | blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?”<|quote|>“Do you find Mr. Crimble,”</|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be | The Outcry |
Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, | No speaker | “Do you find Mr. Crimble,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,</|quote|>“so utterly out of the | helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,</|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on | children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,</|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of | with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,</|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a | your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,</|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let | _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,</|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” | at Dedborough.” “What then am I to say to them?” Lord John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,</|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you | to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,”<|quote|>Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,</|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. | The Outcry |
“so utterly out of the question?” | Lady Sandgate | really be something to say,<|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?”</|quote|>“I found him on the | Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,<|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?”</|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went | really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,<|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?”</|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if | these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,<|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?”</|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate | richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,<|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?”</|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you | I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,<|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?”</|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for | John spoke but after a long moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,<|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?”</|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, | as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say,<|quote|>“so utterly out of the question?”</|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can | The Outcry |
“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” | Theign | utterly out of the question?”<|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”</|quote|>What kind of relation, if | be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?”<|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”</|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still | offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?”<|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”</|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry | I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?”<|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”</|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her | same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?”<|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”</|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there | now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?”<|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”</|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after | moment, during which he had only looked hard and--an observer might even then have felt--ominously at his taskmaster. That personage replied as if wholly to have done with the matter. “Say anything that comes into your clever head. I don’t really see that there’s anything else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?”<|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”</|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered | The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?”<|quote|>“I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”</|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. | The Outcry |
What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of | No speaker | forbid _that_ kind of relation.”<|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of</|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest | fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”<|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of</|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry | utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”<|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of</|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response | the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”<|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of</|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of | broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”<|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of</|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great | ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”<|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of</|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, | else _for_ you!” Lady Sandgate sighed to the messenger, who gave no sign save of positive stiffness. The latter seemed still to weigh his displeasing obligation; then he eyed his friend significantly--almost portentously. “Those are absolutely your sentiments?” “Those are absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”<|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of</|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.” He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real | my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.”<|quote|>What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of</|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, | The Outcry |
“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” | Gotch | not altogether assured sound of<|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”</|quote|>The guest in possession gave | open the door to the not altogether assured sound of<|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”</|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but | fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of<|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”</|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to | as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of<|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”</|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be | thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of<|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”</|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are | deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of<|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”</|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence | absolutely my sentiments” --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of<|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”</|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.” He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the | such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of<|quote|>“Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”</|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him | The Outcry |
The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said | No speaker | sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”<|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said</|quote|>“Coming up?” “If his lordship | to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”<|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said</|quote|>“Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s | him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”<|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said</|quote|>“Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan | might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”<|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said</|quote|>“Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, | for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”<|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said</|quote|>“Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your | language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”<|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said</|quote|>“Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He | --and Lord Theign brought this out as with the force of a physical push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”<|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said</|quote|>“Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.” He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the question of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifference to bad | “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.”<|quote|>The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said</|quote|>“Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and | The Outcry |
“Coming up?” | Lady Sandgate | impatience, but Lady Sandgate said<|quote|>“Coming up?”</|quote|>“If his lordship will see | possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said<|quote|>“Coming up?”</|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his | Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said<|quote|>“Coming up?”</|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant | found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said<|quote|>“Coming up?”</|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than | hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said<|quote|>“Coming up?”</|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to | but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said<|quote|>“Coming up?”</|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that | push. “Very well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said<|quote|>“Coming up?”</|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.” He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the question of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifference to bad debts or | he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said<|quote|>“Coming up?”</|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which | The Outcry |
“If his lordship will see him.” | Gotch | Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?”<|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.”</|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,” | a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?”<|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.”</|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t | might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?”<|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.”</|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at | on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?”<|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.”</|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with | my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?”<|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.”</|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just | the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?”<|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.”</|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too | well then!” But the young man, indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?”<|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.”</|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.” He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the question of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifference to bad debts or peculation like that of some huge | his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?”<|quote|>“If his lordship will see him.”</|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already | The Outcry |
“Oh, he’s beyond his time,” | Theign | his lordship will see him.”<|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,”</|quote|>his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t | Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.”<|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,”</|quote|>his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but | was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.”<|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,”</|quote|>his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of | went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.”<|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,”</|quote|>his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had | grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.”<|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,”</|quote|>his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our | lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.”<|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,”</|quote|>his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can | indulging in a final, a fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.”<|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,”</|quote|>his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.” He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the question of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifference to bad debts or peculation like that of some huge hotel or other business involving | asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.”<|quote|>“Oh, he’s beyond his time,”</|quote|>his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; | The Outcry |
his lordship pronounced-- | No speaker | “Oh, he’s beyond his time,”<|quote|>his lordship pronounced--</|quote|>“I can’t see him now!” | his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,”<|quote|>his lordship pronounced--</|quote|>“I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t | to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,”<|quote|>his lordship pronounced--</|quote|>“I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened | degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,”<|quote|>his lordship pronounced--</|quote|>“I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the | But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,”<|quote|>his lordship pronounced--</|quote|>“I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the | we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,”<|quote|>his lordship pronounced--</|quote|>“I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ | fairly sinister, study of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,”<|quote|>his lordship pronounced--</|quote|>“I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.” He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the question of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifference to bad debts or peculation like that of some huge hotel or other business involving a margin for | which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,”<|quote|>his lordship pronounced--</|quote|>“I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, | The Outcry |
“I can’t see him now!” | Theign | his time,” his lordship pronounced--<|quote|>“I can’t see him now!”</|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t | see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced--<|quote|>“I can’t see him now!”</|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, | the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced--<|quote|>“I can’t see him now!”</|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little | outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced--<|quote|>“I can’t see him now!”</|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do | longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced--<|quote|>“I can’t see him now!”</|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he | and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced--<|quote|>“I can’t see him now!”</|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out | of such a dealer in the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced--<|quote|>“I can’t see him now!”</|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.” He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the question of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifference to bad debts or peculation like that of some huge hotel or other business involving a margin for waste. He could afford, he | supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced--<|quote|>“I can’t see him now!”</|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is | The Outcry |
“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?” | Lady Sandgate | “I can’t see him now!”<|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”</|quote|>She waited, however, for no | his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!”<|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”</|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her | who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!”<|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”</|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did | charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!”<|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”</|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally | commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!”<|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”</|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to | down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!”<|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”</|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit | the arbitrary, made sure of the extent, whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!”<|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”</|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.” He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the question of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifference to bad debts or peculation like that of some huge hotel or other business involving a margin for waste. He could afford, he could work waste too, clearly--and what was | to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!”<|quote|>“Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”</|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant “Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an | The Outcry |
She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant | No speaker | _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”<|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant</|quote|>“Let him come,” and her | see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”<|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant</|quote|>“Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a | the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”<|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant</|quote|>“Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to | old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”<|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant</|quote|>“Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” | of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”<|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant</|quote|>“Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost | it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”<|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant</|quote|>“Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit | whatever it was, of his own wrong. “Not one more day?” Lord Theign only waved him away. “Not one more hour!” He paused at the door, this reluctant spokesman, as if for some supreme protest; but after another prolonged and decisive engagement with the two pairs of eyes that waited, though differently, on his performance, he clapped on his hat as in the rage of his resentment and departed on his mission. III “He can’t bear to do it, poor man!” Lady Sand-gate ruefully remarked to her remaining guest after Lord John had, under extreme pressure, dashed out to Bond Street. “I dare say not!” --Lord Theign, flushed with the felicity of self-expression, made little of that. “But he goes too far, you see, and it clears the air--pouah! Now therefore” --and he glanced at the clock-- “I must go to Kitty.” “Kitty--with what Kitty wants,” Lady Sandgate opined-- “won’t thank you for _that!_” “She never thanks me for anything” --and the fact of his resignation clearly added here to his bitterness. “So it’s no great loss!” “Won’t you at any rate,” his hostess asked, “wait for Bender?” His lordship cast it to the winds. “What have I to do with him now?” “Why surely if he’ll accept your own price--!” Lord Theign thought--he wondered; and then as if fairly amused at himself: “Hanged if I know what _is_ my own price!” After which he went for his hat. “But there’s one thing,” he remembered as he came back with it: “where’s my too, _too_ unnatural daughter?” “If you mean Grace and really want her I’ll send and find out.” “Not now” --he bethought himself. “But does she _see_ that chatterbox?” “Mr. Crimble? Yes, she sees him.” He kept his eyes on her. “Then how far has it gone?” Lady Sandgate overcame an embarrassment. “Well, not even yet, I think, so far as they’d like.” “They’d ‘like’--heaven save the mark!--to marry?” “I suspect them of it. What line, if it should come to that,” she asked, “would you then take?” He was perfectly prompt. “The line that for Grace it’s simply ignoble.” The force of her deprecation of such language was qualified by tact. “Ah, darling, as dreadful as _that?_” He could but view the possibility with dark resentment. “It lets us so down--from what we’ve always been and done; so down, down, down that I’m amazed you don’t feel it!” “Oh, I feel there’s still plenty to keep you up!” she soothingly laughed. He seemed to consider this vague amount--which he apparently judged, however, not so vast as to provide for the whole yearning of his nature. “Well, my dear,” he thus more blandly professed, “I shall need all the extra _agrément_ that your affection can supply.” If nothing could have been, on this, richer response, nothing could at the same time have bee more pleasing than her modesty. “Ah, my affectionate Theign, is, as I think you know, a fountain always in flood; but in any more worldly element than that--as you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”<|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant</|quote|>“Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship curtly, “if thousands have seen it I’ve done what I wanted, and if they’ve been gratified I’m content--and invite _you_ to be.” Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?” “Well--if you’ll take it on my estimate.” “But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “_is_ your estimate?” The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. The charming woman smiled then at her other friend, whose comprehensive presence appeared now to demand of her some account of these strange proceedings. “He means that your own valuation is much too shockingly high.” “But how can I know _how_ much unless I find out what he’ll take?” The great collector’s spirit had, in spite of its volume, clearly not reached its limit of expansion. “Is he crazily waiting for the thing to be proved _not_ what Mr. Crimble claims?” “No, he’s waiting for nothing--since he holds that claim demolished by Pappendick’s tremendous negative, which you wrote to tell him of.” Vast, undeveloped and suddenly grave, Mr. Bender’s countenance showed like a barren tract under a black cloud. “I wrote to _report_, fair and square, on Pap-pendick, but to tell him I’d take the picture just the same, negative and all.” “Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.” “We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened--we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.” “You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention----?” “Yes,” --he took it from her-- “the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for _that_.” Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one--and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.” “Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!” --and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders. But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands--too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.” He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled--though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the question of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifference to bad debts or peculation like that of some huge hotel or other business involving a margin for waste. He could afford, he could work waste too, clearly--and what was it, that term, you might have felt him ask, but a | you’ve ever seen for yourself--a poor strand with my own sad affairs, a broken reed; not ‘great’ as they used so finely to call it! You _are_--with the natural sense of greatness and, for supreme support, the instinctive grand man doing and taking things.” He sighed, none the less, he groaned, with his thoughts of trouble, for the strain he foresaw on these resolutions. “If you mean that I hold up my head, on higher grounds, I grant that I always have. But how much longer possible when my children commit such vulgarities? Why in the name of goodness are such children? What the devil has got into them, and is it really the case that when Grace offers as a proof of her license and a specimen of her taste a son-in-law as you tell me I’m in danger of helplessly to swallow the dose?” “Do you find Mr. Crimble,” Lady Sandgate as if there might really be something to say, “so utterly out of the question?” “I found him on the two occasions before I went away in the last degree offensive and outrageous; but even if he charged one and one’s poor dear decent old defences with less rabid a fury everything about him would forbid _that_ kind of relation.” What kind of relation, if any, Hugh’s deficiencies might still render thinkable Lord Theign was kept from going on to mention by the voice of Mr. Gotch, who had thrown open the door to the not altogether assured sound of “Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The guest in possession gave a cry of impatience, but Lady Sandgate said “Coming up?” “If his lordship will see him.” “Oh, he’s beyond his time,” his lordship pronounced-- “I can’t see him now!” “Ah, but _mustn’t_ you--and mayn’t _I_ then?”<|quote|>She waited, however, for no response to signify to her servant</|quote|>“Let him come,” and her companion could but exhale a groan of reluctant accommodation as if he wondered at the point she made of it. It enlightened him indeed perhaps a little that she went on while Gotch did her bidding. “Does the kind of relation you’d be condemned to with Mr. Crimble let you down, down, down, as you say, more than the relation you’ve been having with Mr. Bender?” Lord Theign had for it the most uninforming of stares. “Do you mean don’t I hate ‘em equally both?” She cut his further reply short, however, by a “Hush!” of warning--Mr. Bender was there and his introducer had left them. Lord Theign, full of his purpose of departure, sacrificed hereupon little to ceremony. “I’ve but a moment, to my regret, to give you, Mr. Bender, and if you’ve been unavoidably detained, as you great bustling people are so apt to be, it will perhaps still be soon enough for your comfort to hear from me that I’ve just given order to close our exhibition. From the present hour on, sir” --he put it with the firmness required to settle the futility of an appeal. Mr. Bender’s large surprise lost itself, however, promptly enough, in Mr. Bender’s larger ease. “Why, do you really mean it, Lord Theign?--removing already from view a work that gives innocent gratification to thousands?” “Well,” said his lordship | The Outcry |
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