“Then I must prepare for the dungeon,” said Neaera, and rearranged her hair before a mirror.
“It quite reminds me,” said Mrs. Pocklington, “of the dear Queen of Scots.”
Lord Tottlebury was, in spite of his preoccupations, beginning to argue about the propriety of Mrs. Pocklington’s epithet, when George was shown in. He looked weary, bored, disgusted. After shaking hands with Lord Tottlebury, he bowed generally to the room, and said,
“I propose to bring Mr. Jennings, the clerk, in first; then the policeman. It will be better they should come separately.”
Lord Tottlebury nodded. Gerald had ostentatiously turned his back on his cousin. Mrs. Pocklington fanned herself with an air of amused protest, which the girls reproduced in a broader form. No one spoke, till Neaera herself said with a laugh,
“Arrange your effects as you please, Mr. Neston.”
George looked at her. She was dressed with extraordinary richness, considering the occasion. Her neck and arms, disclosed by her evening gown, glittered with diamonds; a circlet of the same stones adorned her golden hair, which was arranged in a lofty erection on her head. She met his look with derisive defiance, smiling in response to the sarcastic smile on his face. George’s smile was called forth by the recognition of his opponent’s tactics. Her choice of time and place had enabled her to call to her aid all the arts of millinery and the resources of wealth to dazzle and blind the eyes of those who sought to find in her the shabby draggle-tailed girl of eight years before. Old Mr. Jennings had come under strong protest. He was, he said, half blind eight years ago, and more than half now; he had seen hundreds of interesting young criminals and could no more recognise one from another than to-day’s breakfast egg from yesterday week’s; as for police photographs, everybody knew they only darkened truth. Still he came, because George had constrained him.
Neaera, Isabel, and Laura Pocklington took their places side by side, Neaera on the right, leaning her arm on the chimney-piece, in her favourite pose of languid haughtiness; Isabel was next her. Lord Tottlebury met Mr. Jennings with cold civility, and gave him a chair. The old man wiped his spectacles and put them on. A pause ensued.
“George,” said Lord Tottlebury, “I suppose you have explained?”
“Yes,” said George. “Mr. Jennings, can you say whether any, and which, of the persons present is Nelly Game?”