“Oh, I’m at the very lowest round of the ladder. But I aspire!” Hugh laughed.
“You’ll mount!” said Lady Grace with friendly confidence.
He took it again with gay deprecation. “Ah, if by that time there’s anything left here to mount on!”
“Let us hope there will be at least what Mr. Bender, poor man, won’t have been able to carry off.” To which Lady Grace added, as to strike a helpful spark from the personage who had just joined them, but who had the air of wishing to preserve his detachment: “It’s to Lord John that we owe Mr. Bender’s acquaintance.”
Hugh looked at the gentleman to whom they were so indebted. “Then do you happen to know, sir, what your friend means to do with his spoil?”
The question got itself but dryly treated, as if it might be a commercially calculating or interested one. “Oh, not sell it again.”
“Then ship it to New York?” the inquirer pursued, defining himself somehow as not snubbed and, from this point, not snubbable.
That appearance failed none the less to deprive Lord John of a betrayed relish for being able to displease Lady Grace’s odd guest by large assent. “As fast as ever he can—and you can land things there now, can’t you? in three or four days.”
“I dare say. But can’t he be induced to have a little mercy?” Hugh sturdily pursued.
Lord John pushed out his lips. “A ‘little’? How much do you want?”