Lady Charlotte paid an early visit to the office of the great London solicitor, Arthur Abner, who wielded the law as an instrument of protection for countless illustrious people afflicted by what they stir or attract in a wealthy metropolis. She went simply to gossip of her brother's affairs with a refreshing man of the world, not given to circumlocutions, and not afraid of her: she had no deeper object; but fancying she heard the clerk, on his jump from the stool, inform her that Mr. Abner was out, “Out?” she cried, and rattled the room, thumping, under knitted brows. “Out of town?” For a man of business taking holidays, when a lady craves for gossip, disappointed her faith in him as cruelly as the shut-up, empty inn the broken hunter knocking at a hollow door miles off home.
Mr. Abner, hatted and gloved and smiling, came forth. “Going out, the man meant, Lady Charlotte. At your service for five minutes.”
She complimented his acuteness, in the remark, “You see I've only come to chat,” and entered his room.
He led her to her theme: “The excitement is pretty well over.”
“My brother's my chief care—always was. I'm afraid he'll be pitchforking at it again, and we shall have another blast. That letter ought never to have been printed. That editor deserves the horsewhip for letting it appear. If he prints a second one I shall treat him as a personal enemy.”
“Better make a friend of him.”
“How?”
“Meet him at my table.”
She jumped an illumined half-about on her chair. “So I will, then. What are the creature's tastes?”
“Hunts, does he?” The editor rose in her mind from the state of neuter to something of a man. “I recollect an article in that paper on the Ormont duel. I hate duelling, but I side with my brother. I had to laugh, though. Luckily, there's no woman on hand at present, as far as I know. Ormont's not likely to be hooked by garrison women or blacks. Those coloured women—some of ours too—send the nose to the clouds; not a bad sign for health. And there are men like that old Cardinal Guicciardini tells of... hum! Ormont's not one of them. I hope he'll stay in India till this blows over, or I shall be hearing of provocations.”