“No, my lady, but Lord John has—to know if he’s expected here, and in that case, by your ladyship’s leave, to come up.”
Her ladyship turned to the girl. “May Lord John—as we do await your father—come up?”
“As suits you, please!”
“He may come up,” said Lady Sandgate to Gotch. “His lordship’s expected.” She had a pause till they were alone again, when she went on to her companion: “You asked me just now if I understood. Well—I do understand!”
Lady Grace, with Gotch’s withdrawal, which left the door open, had reached the passage to the other room. “Then you’ll excuse me!”—she made her escape.
II
Lord John, reannounced the next instant from the nearest quarter and quite waiving salutations, left no doubt of the high pitch of his eagerness and tension as soon as the door had closed behind him. “What on earth then do you suppose he has come back to do—?” To which he added while his hostess’s gesture impatiently disclaimed conjecture: “Because when a fellow really finds himself the centre of a cyclone——!”
“Isn’t it just at the centre,” she interrupted, “that you keep remarkably still, and only in the suburbs that you feel the rage? I count on dear Theign’s doing nothing in the least foolish—!”
“Ah, but he can’t have chucked everything for nothing,” Lord John sharply returned; “and wherever you place him in the rumpus he can’t not meet somehow, hang it, such an assault on his character as a great nobleman and good citizen.”