“I want to see you in the library about something in particular, as soon as you have got through here,” she said, with an air that was a little more commanding than necessary.
He smiled and bowed, but a slight frown settled on his handsome face as he looked after her. What track was she on now? “Do you know what the indictment is, Louis?” he asked presently, having lighted a cigar, turned his side to the table, on which he leaned, and placed his feet in the chair Annette had occupied. “Milady looked as though the jury had found a bill.”
Louis Ferrier, whom we need not occupy our time in describing, didn’t know what the row was, really; couldn’t tell; never troubled himself about ma’s affairs.
Lawrence smoked away vigorously, two or three lines coming between his smoothly-curved eyebrows; and, as the cigar diminished, his irritation increased. Presently he threw the cigar-end impatiently through an open window near, and brought his feet to the floor with an emphasis that made his companion stare.
“If there is anything I hate,” he cried out, “it is being called away into a corner to hear something particular. I always know it means something disagreeable. If you want to set me wild, just step up to me mysteriously, and say that you wish to speak to me about something particular. Women are always doing such things. Men never do, unless they are policemen.”
Young Mr. Ferrier sat opposite the speaker, lolling on the table with his elbows widespread, and a glass of wine between them, from which he could drink without raising it, merely tipping the brim to his pale little moustache. He took a sip before answering, and, still retaining his graceful position, rolled up a pair of very light-blue eyes as he said, in a lisping voice that was insufferably supercilious: “Ma never does, unless it’s something about money. You may be pretty sure it’s something about money.”
The clear, pale profile opposite him suddenly turned a deep pink, and Lawrence looked round at him with a sharp glance, before which his fell. The little drawling speech had been delivered with more of a drawl than that habitual to Mr. Ferrier, perhaps, and it seemed that there was a slight emphasis which might be regarded as significant. Gerald had not taken any great pains to conciliate his prospective brother-in-law, and Louis liked to remind him occasionally that the advantages were not all on one side.
Lawrence rose carelessly from the table, and filliped a crumb of bread off his vest. “I say, Louis,” he remarked, “do you know you have rather a peculiar way of putting your head down to your food, instead of raising your food to your mouth? Reminds one of—well, now, it’s a little like the quadrupeds, isn’t it? Excuse me, that may be taken as a compliment. I’m not sure but quadrupeds have, on the whole, rather better manners than bipeds. Grace isn’t everything. Money is the chief thing, after all. You can gild such wooden things with it. I’m going to talk about it with your mother. Good-by! Don’t take too much wine.”
He sauntered out of the room, and shut the door behind him. “Vulgar place!” he muttered, going through the entries. “Worsted rainbows everywhere. I wonder Annette did not know better.” A contrasting picture floated up before his mind of a cool, darkened chamber, all pure white and celestial blue, with two little golden flames burning in a shady nook before a marble saint, and one slender sun-ray stretched athwart, as though the place had been let down from heaven, and the golden rope still held it moored to that peaceful shore. The contrast gave him a stifled feeling.
As he passed the drawing-room door, he saw Annette seated near it, evidently on the watch for him. She started up and ran to the door the moment he appeared. Her face had been very pale, but now the color fluttered in it. She looked at him with anxious entreaty.