This illness tried her patience in no slight degree. Something she had wished to do, something of high moment, was vexatiously postponed. A whole week went by before she could safely leave the house, and even then her mirror counselled a new delay. But on the third day of the new year she made a careful toilette, and sent for a cab,—the brougham she had been wont to hire being now beyond her means.
She drove to Farringdon Street, and climbed to the office of Mr Luckworth Crewe. Her knowledge of Crewe’s habits enabled her to choose the fitting hour for this call; he had lunched, and was smoking a cigar.
‘How delightful to see you here!’ he exclaimed. ‘But why did you trouble to come? If you had written, or telegraphed, I would have saved you the journey. I haven’t even a chair that’s fit for you to sit down on.’
‘What nonsense! It’s a most comfortable little room. Haven’t you improved it since I called?’
‘I shall have to look out for a bigger place. I’m outgrowing this.’
‘Are you really? That’s excellent news. Ah, but what sad things have been happening!’
‘It’s a bad business,’ Crewe answered, shaking his head.
‘I thought I should have heard from you about it.’
The reason of his silence she perfectly understood. Since Horace’s engagement, there had been a marked change in her demeanour towards the man of business; she had answered his one or two letters with such cold formality, and, on the one occasion of his venturing to call, had received him with so marked a reserve, that Crewe, as he expressed it to himself, ‘got his back up.’ His ideas of chivalrous devotion were anything but complex; he could not bend before a divinity who snubbed him; if the once gracious lady chose to avert her countenance, he would let her know that it didn’t matter much to him after all. Moreover, Mrs. Damerel’s behaviour was too suggestive; he could hardly be wrong in explaining it by the fact that her nephew, about to be enriched by marriage, might henceforth be depended upon for all the assistance she needed. This, in the Americanism which came naturally to Crewe’s lips, was ‘playing it rather low down,’ and he resented it.
The sudden ruin of Horace Lord’s prospects (he had learnt the course of events from Horace himself) amused and gratified him. How would the high and mighty Mrs. Damerel relish this catastrophe? Would she have the ‘cheek’ to return to her old graciousness? If so, he had the game in his hands; she should see that he was not to be made a fool of a second time.