A lackey in the club’s regalia brought a tray of letters and set it beside him. Gordon lit a cigar before he examined them. They were the usual collection: a sprinkling of effusions from romantic incognitas; a graver tribute from Walter Scott; a pressing request for that evening from Lady Jersey.
“To meet Madame de Staël!” he mused. “I once travelled three thousand miles to get among silent people; and this lady writes octavos and talks folios. I have read her essay against suicide; if I heard her recite it, I might swallow poison.”
The final note he lifted was written on blue-bordered paper, its corners embossed with tiny cockle-shells, and he opened it with a nettled frown.
“Poor Caro!” he muttered. “Why will you persist in imprudent things? Some day your epistle will fall into the lion’s jaws, and then I must hold out my iron. I am out of practice, but I won’t go to Manton’s now. Besides,” he added with a shrug, “I wouldn’t return his shot. I used to be a famous wafer-splitter, but since I began to feel I had a bad cause to support, I have left off the exercise.”
His face took on a deeper perplexity as he read the eccentric, curling hand:
“... Gordon, do you remember that first dinner at Melbourne House—the day after your speech in the Lords? You gave me a carnation from your buttonhole. You said, ‘I am told your ladyship likes all that is new and rare—for the moment!’ Ah, that meeting was not only for the moment with me, you know that! It has lasted ever since. I have never heard your name announced that it did not thrill every pulse of my body. I have never heard a venomous word against you that did not sting me, too.”
Gordon held the letter in a candle-flame, and dropped it on the salver. As it crackled to a mass of glowing tinder, a step fell behind him. He looked up to see Moore.
“Tom,” he said, his brow clearing, “I am in one of my most vaporish moments.”
Moore seated himself on a chair-arm and poked the blackening twist of paper with his walking-stick. He smiled an indulgent smile of prime and experience.
“From which I conclude—” he answered sagely, “that you are bound to Drury Lane greenroom instead of to Lady Jersey’s this evening.”