Something further, on this, quite immaterial, but quite adequate, passed, while the young man’s back was turned, between the two others; in consequence of which Chivers again appealed to his master. “Shall I show them straight in, sir?”
His master, still detached, replied without looking at him. “By all means—if there’s money in it!” This was jocose, but there would have been, for an observer, an increase of hope in the old man’s departing step. The lady had exerted an influence.
She continued, for that matter, with a start of genial remembrance, to exert one in his absence. “Oh, and I promised to show it to Miss Prodmore!” Her conscience, with a kind smile for the young person she named, put the question to Clement Yule. “Won’t you call her?”
The coldness of his quick response made it practically none. “‘Call’ her? Dear lady, I don’t know her!”
“You must, then—she’s wonderful.” The face with which he met this drew from the dear lady a sharper look; but, for the aid of her good-nature, Cora Prodmore, at the moment she spoke, presented herself in the doorway of the morning-room. “See? She’s charming!” The girl, with a glare of recognition, dashed across the open as if under heavy fire; but heavy fire, alas—the extremity of exposure—was promptly embodied in her friend’s public embrace. “Miss Prodmore,” said this terrible friend, “let me present Captain Yule.” Never had so great a gulf been bridged in so free a span. “Captain Yule, Miss Prodmore. Miss Prodmore, Captain Yule.”
There was stiffness, the cold mask of terror, in such notice as either party took of this demonstration, the convenience of which was not enhanced for the divided pair by the perception that Mr. Prodmore had now followed his daughter. Cora threw herself confusedly into it indeed, as with a vain rebound into the open. “Papa, let me ‘present’ you to Mrs. Gracedew. Mrs. Gracedew, Mr. Prodmore. Mr. Prodmore, Mrs. Gracedew.”
Mrs. Gracedew, with a free salute and a distinct repetition, took in Mr. Prodmore as she had taken everything else. “Mr. Prodmore”—oh, she pronounced him, spared him nothing of himself. “So happy to meet your daughter’s father. Your daughter’s so perfect a specimen.”
Mr. Prodmore, for the first moment, had simply looked large and at sea; then, like a practical man and without more question, had quickly seized the long perch held out to him in this statement. “So perfect a specimen, yes!”—he seemed to pass it on to his young friend.
Mrs. Gracedew, if she observed his emphasis, drew from it no deterrence; she only continued to cover Cora with a gaze that kept her well in the middle. “So fresh, so quaint, so droll!”
It was apparently a result of what had passed in the morning-room that Mr. Prodmore had grasped afresh the need for effective action, which he clearly felt he did something to meet in clutching precipitately the helping hand popped so suddenly out of space, yet so beautifully gloved and so pressingly and gracefully brandished. “So fresh, so quaint, so droll!”—he again gave Captain Yule the advantage of the stranger’s impression.