The count explained, almost pathetically, that the prince had naturally feared that this was the case. “And, in anticipation of your refusal, monsieur, I just paid visit to the Lady Forwood, to ask her to join in our appeal.”
He drew a note from his breast-pocket. It was from Lady Forwood, the wife of the popular baronet, Sir David Forwood, who had been Hugh’s friend for many years. Lady Forwood was the only woman, with the exception of his sisters, with whom Dr. Paull was at all familiar. She was not only a good woman, but was possessed of the feminine gift of tact in a marked degree.
“My dear Doctor” (she wrote),—“I am quite thankful to hear you have consented to see my old friend Mercedes. As I know you always like to have a good look at your patients, I venture to propose that you should spare us half-an-hour, and come to our box at Covent Garden to-night. It is exactly opposite the Prince Andriocchi’s, and you will be able to judge of my poor friend all the better, because she will not know you are looking at her. Afterwards, we can introduce you to her.
“Yours most truly,
“Margaret Forwood.
“P. S.—The number of our box is 9. I will leave word at the door that you are coming.”
Hugh wavered; but before he knew that he had consented to the fair letter-writer’s proposition, the count had left him, and he could hardly withdraw his half-reluctant consent.
“I suppose I must go,” he told himself.
He disliked the proceeding altogether. The sense that he was doing that which he reprehended in others, acting for the great of this world in a manner he would certainly not act for the lowly, oppressed him throughout the day.
“It is a step in the wrong direction,” he told himself, as he stood before the glass, arranging that conventional white tie which he professed to disdain, with “the rest of men’s enforced toggery,” as he called the swallowtails and chimneypots, “but I have let myself in for it somehow, and must go through with it.”