“You are—as we are. The connection is rather distant, but it is near enough to form a sort of link.”
“I've wanted to see Lady Joan,” explained Tembarom. “From what I've heard, I should say she was one of the 'Lady's Pictorial' kind.”
“I am afraid—” Palliser's voice was slightly unsteady for the moment—“I have not studied the type sufficiently to know. The 'Pictorial' is so exclusively a women's periodical.”
His companion laughed.
“Well, I've only looked through it once myself just to find out. Some way I always think of Lady Joan as if she was like one of those Beaut's from Beautsville, with trains as long as parlor-cars and feathers in their heads—dressed to go to see the queen. I guess she's been presented at court,” he added.
“Yes, she has been presented.”
“Do they let 'em go more than once?” he asked with casual curiosity.
“Confound this cough!” exclaimed Captain Palliser, and he broke forth again.
“Take another G,” said Tembarom, producing his tube. “Say, just take the bottle and keep it in your pocket.”
When the brief paroxysm was over and they moved on again, Palliser was looking an odd thing or so in the face. “I always think of Lady Joan” was one of them. “Always” seemed to go rather far. How often and why had he “always thought”? The fellow was incredible. Did his sharp, boyish face and his slouch conceal a colossal, vulgar, young ambition? There was not much concealment about it, Heaven knew. And as he so evidently was not aware of the facts, how would they affect him when he discovered them? And though Lady Mallowe was a woman not in the least distressed or hampered by shades of delicacy and scruple, she surely was astute enough to realize that even this bounder's dullness might be awakened to realize that there was more than a touch of obvious indecency in bringing the girl to the house of the man she had tragically loved, and manoeuvering to work her into it as the wife of the man who, monstrously unfit as he was, had taken his place. Captain Palliser knew well that the pressing of the relationship had meant only one thing. And how, in the name of the Furies! had she dragged Lady Joan into the scheme with her?