Sir Joseph Todd had been making fruitless efforts to rise, unaided, from his chair; he now caught Claude's arm, and simultaneously, the eye of the Duke.
"Jumping Moses!" roared Jack; "why, there he is! I beg your pardon, mister; but who'd have thought of finding you here?"
"This is pleasing," muttered Edmund Stubbs, in the background, to his friend the Impressionist. "I've seen the lion and the lamb lie down here together before to-day. But nothing like this!"
The Impressionist whipped out a pencil and bared a shirt-cuff. No one saw him. All eyes were upon the Duke and the magistrate, who were shaking hands.
"You have paid me a valuable compliment," croaked Sir Joseph gayly. "Of course I winked! Hadn't I my Lord Duke's little peccadillo to wink at?"
And he bowed himself away under cover of his joke, which also helped Lady Caroline enormously. The Duke mentioned the name by which he would go down to posterity on a metropolitan charge-sheet. Most people resumed their conversation. A few still laughed. And the less seriously the whole matter was taken, the better, of course, for all concerned, particularly the Duke. Olivia had him in hand now. And her mother found time to exchange a few words with Claude Lafont.
"A dear fellow, is he not? So natural! Such an example in that way to us all! How many of us would carry ourselves as well in—in our bush garments?" speculated her Ladyship, for the benefit of more ears than Claude's. Then her voice sank and trembled. "Take him away, Claude," she gasped below her breath. "Take him away!"
"I intend to," he whispered, nodding, "when I get the chance."
"But not only from here—from town as well. Carry him off to the Towers! And when you get him there, for heaven's sake keep him there, and take him in hand, and we will all come down in August to see what you have done."
"I'm quite agreeable, of course; but what if he isn't?"