“He’s not in the least, and can never be, in my tight place,” Lady Sandgate replied; “but he’s as proud as he’s kind, dear man, and as solid as he’s proud; so that if you came down under a different impression—!” Well, she could only exhale the folly of his error with an unction that represented, whatever he might think of it, all her competence to answer for their host.
He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted from prior dispositions. “I came on an understanding that I should find my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction, kindly let me look round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door——”
“For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?”
“For another look at you, Lady Sandgate—your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on, “I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.”
“You don’t keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!”
He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?”
“Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.”
“Oh, you must be there to protect me!”
“Then as soon as I return——!”
“Well,”—it clearly cost him little to say—“I’ll come right round.”