As Mrs. Clermont rose to her feet, a thin, severe figure stood on the threshold. She saw with relief that it was Lady Noël, and handed her the letter with a feline smile.
“Perhaps your ladyship will know if this should be preserved,” she said. “I found it just now on the floor.”
Lady Noël’s eyes glittered at sight of the cockle-shells. She read it hastily by the firelight. Her look was coldly yet triumphantly malignant as she leaned forward.
“Put an outer wrapper on this,” she ordered in an undertone, “seal it, and take it at once to Melbourne House. Give it into William Lamb’s hands—to no one else. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lady,” the other replied, and left her noiselessly, as Gordon came slowly down the stair.
“I have left your lordship this evening’s Courier,” said Lady Noël, forbiddingly.
“Thank you,” he answered and looked at it carelessly. On its exposed page a pencil had marked an article of considerable length whose title was: “The Poetical Works of a Peer of the Realm, viewed in connection with Christianity and the Obligations of Social Life.”
Its final paragraph was underscored with meaning heaviness:
“We have less remorse in quoting the noble lord,”—he read—“for, by this time, we believe the whole world is inclined to admit that he can pay no compliment so valuable as his censure, nor offer any insult so intolerable as his praise. Crede Gordon is the noble lord’s armorial motto: ‘Trust Gordon’ is the translation in the Red-Book. We cannot but admire the ingenuity with which his lordship has converted the good faith of his ancestors into a sarcasm on his own duplicity.”
A simmer of rage rose in Gordon’s throat. He tore the paper twice across, flung it down, and passed on to the drawing-room. Seeing no one, he rang for the valet.