“Oh, what would Arthur say? and what would Arthur do? and is he not bound to keep his word?” cried Lady Curtis. “How you worry me with your sentimentalizing! What should have been done was to bring him away, to hush it up. And it might have been done; but Mr. Durant has spoiled it all; he might have done it. Nobody has so much power with Arthur. If he had only brought him away for a single day all might have been well.”
“He would not have come,” said Durant, more to himself than to her, for he was vexed and angry, though he was most anxious not to show it. “I—power with him! He quarrelled with me outright, would not speak to me. I tried what I could. The family might have yielded, but she would not yield—not an inch. She told me—when I threatened that Sir John and you would withdraw or diminish his allowance, and that he might become poor—that there was all the more reason why she should hold by him—it would prove her sincerity.”
“I should have said the same thing,” said Lucy, holding her breath.
“You! you have been brought up very differently. So, she was disinterested, was she? Ah!” said Lady Curtis, calming a little, “that is more dangerous than I thought.”
“Yes,” said Durant, pleased to have produced some effect, and carried beyond the bounds of prudence, “that is exactly what she said. It was her only chance to show that it was of himself she was thinking, not any wish to be rich or to become my lady.”
“To become my lady!” My Lady faltered as if a blow had been struck at her. Yes, to be sure, her son would be Sir Arthur in his turn, and his wife Lady Curtis, everybody knew that; but to feel that your end is anticipated, and your very name appropriated, this gives even to the old, much more to the middle-aged, a curious thrill of sensation. It was a shock to her. She felt as if she had been struck; then she recovered herself and laughed a little, short, hard laugh. “So,” she said, rubbing her hands feebly together, “she is looking forward to that. I did not think of that.”
Durant saw his mistake, but he did not see how to mend it. Lucy, darting upon him in the darkness what he felt to be a glance of reproach, rushed hastily past him to her mother. But by this time Lady Curtis had recovered herself.
“Never mind,” she said, “never mind, my dear. It was quite natural. But that was not Arthur. No, we know him better than to believe that.”
“And she does not know you—did not know what she was saying.”
“Oh, as for that! Ring the bell, Lucy. Let us have the lamp at least, if we can have no other light on the subject. It was just the thing, of course, that an ignorant under-bred girl would think of.”