"Did he send you?" she asked breathlessly.
In a good cause, Ida did not hesitate to strain the truth. "Of course," she answered impatiently, then she went a little too far, and added something which she thought would hurt. "He is waiting down below now."
Lalage made a rapid mental calculation. Jimmy had only set out for the City twenty minutes before, and could not have returned, so she laughed bitterly. "I will give them to Mr. Grierson when he comes for them himself," she answered.
Ida's steely eyes glittered. "He will not be such a fool as to come back, weak and wicked though he has been."
The younger woman took a step forward so suddenly that Mrs. Fenton recoiled. "He is not weak and wicked. It is abominable for you, his sister, to say so. He is far too good for any of you, and whatever he has done wrong, you are to blame for it. You never tried to understand him or help him. You just left him drift away because he didn't fall in with your narrow-minded ideas. I may have done wrong, I have done wrong; but he has always been all that is good and true and honourable. He may leave me, but he'll never go back to you, never, never, never." She paused, breathless.
Ida Fenton had recovered her composure. "Perhaps it will alter your point of view when I tell you that if my brother continues to know you, he will never get anything from his family. We shall cut him off entirely. I believe that is the kind of argument which appeals to persons of your sort." She emphasised the last two words. "He may have misled you with the idea that he could get money out of us; but that was quite wrong; whilst, as for his own prospects, he is no good and never will be."
"You shan't say that about him," Lalage broke in passionately. "It's only your ignorance and your jealousy of his cleverness."
Ida shrugged her shoulders scornfully. "No doubt you are a judge of what is correct and right. You should know my brother by now. But I think he, too, will have learnt all about you this morning. That telegram which trapped you a few nights back, calling you out to meet a man in the West End, was sent by one of my brother-in-law's clerks. You were watched then, and recognised by the police. You will get notice to leave here to-day, and I do not think you will find another place in London. If you can explain all that to my brother to his satisfaction, he must be such a fool that you will be welcome to him."
Then she swept out, feeling she had vindicated the Grierson tradition.
It was an hour later, when Lalage heard Jimmy's key in the lock. She was sitting huddled up in a big armchair, his favourite chair; but she did not move when he came in, and stood in front of her, though she had noticed that he was dragging his feet a little, and breathing heavily, as though the stairs had exhausted him.