“That is right,” she said, approvingly. “I knew I could rely on your good feelings not to let two millions go out of the family. But now, are you quite sure, Gerald, that you said nothing to Mr. Hammond last night that might have led him to suspect that there was something between you and Victoria?”
Gerald, conscious of having assured Hammond with considerable earnestness that Victoria loved himself, turned red as he stammered:
“Oh—er—well—I don’t know; the fact is, you see, I didn’t understand—”
His aunt came to his relief.
“Exactly. I thought as much. Now, Gerald, I shall be seeing Mr. Hammond this morning, and I leave it to your sense of honor to go and speak to him and put things right first. You understand me?”
The wretched Mauleverer rose to go out. On his way to the door he caught Despencer’s mocking smile, and longed to kick him. As soon as he was gone, the other, unconscious of the peril he had run, uttered the words:
“Marchioness, you are a great woman!”
SCENE XIV
PISTOLS FOR TWO
John Hammond, although a bachelor, lived in a very good house, in the same neighborhood as Lord Severn’s, and, strange as it may appear to the author of The Christian, he possessed more than one teaspoon. When he had hospital nurses of doubtful character to tea, which was extremely seldom, he did not even wait on them himself; he kept servants for that very purpose. Possibly those extraordinary facts may be accounted for by his not being a wicked lord, nor even a misguided baronet.
John Hammond was seated at home on the morning after the concert, considering his position. Immediately after the scene in the picture-gallery overnight he had come away, feeling as if his world had crumbled into ruin around him. He had saved the woman he loved from the marchioness’s scorn; he could not save her from his own. And the other woman, whom he had considered his friend, to whom he had offered himself in all good-will, believing that she had affection to give him, if not love—he had discovered that her heart was engaged, and that she regarded marriage with him as a hateful necessity.