“A lady?” asked Mr Byers with a touch of satire.
“Oh yes,” said Lady Craigennoch, scornful that he needed to ask. “But so odd. Well, you’ve seen her with him—just like a mother with her pet boy! How hard she’s worked, to be sure! She told me how she’d got him to sign the what’s-its-name. He almost cried, because he’d have to go without her, you know. But she says it’s all right now; he won’t go back now, because he’s given his word. And she’s simply triumphant, though she’s fond of him, and though she won’t go with him.” Again Lady Craigennoch paused. “People won’t call on that woman, you know,” she remarked after her pause. Then she added, “Of course that’s right, except for a reprobate like me. But still——”
“She’s an interesting woman,” said Byers in a perfunctory sympathy with his companion’s enthusiasm.
Lady Craigennoch cooled down, and fixed a cold and penetrating glance on him.
“Yes, and you’re an interesting man,” she said. “What are you doing, Mr Byers?”
“Vindicating Right Divine,” he answered.
Lady Craigennoch smiled. “Well, whatever it is,” she said, “Shum has promised that I shall stand in.” Again she paused. “Only,” she resumed, “if you’re making a fool of that woman——” She seemed unable to finish the sentence; there had been genuine indignation in her eyes for a moment; it faded away; but there came a slight flush on her cheeks as she added, “But that doesn’t matter if it’s in the way of business, does it?”
“And Shum has promised that you shall stand in,” Byers reminded her gravely.
Lady Craigennoch dug her parasol into the streak of earth that showed between pavement and curbstone.
“Anyhow I’m glad I called on her,” she said. “I’m not much, Heaven knows, but I’m a woman to speak to.”