“Well, I’ve only looked through it once myself just to find out. Some way I always think of Lady Joan as if she was like one of those Beaut’s from Beautsville, with trains as long as parlor-cars and feathers in their heads—dressed to go to see the queen. I guess she’s been presented at court,” he added even a trifle more unsteadily.
“Yes, she has been presented.”
“Do they let ’em go more than once?” he asked with casual curiosity.
“Confound this cough!” exclaimed Captain Palliser, and he broke forth again.
“Take another G,” said Tembarom, producing his tube. “Say, just take the bottle and keep it in your pocket.”
When the brief paroxysm was over and they moved on again. Palliser was looking an odd thing or so in the face. “I always think of Lady Joan” was one of them. “Always” seemed to go rather far. How often and why had he “always thought”? The fellow was incredible. Did his sharp, boyish face and his slouch conceal a colossal, vulgar, young ambition? There was not much concealment about it, Heaven knew. And as he so evidently was not aware of the facts, how would they affect him when he discovered them? And though Lady Mallowe was a woman not in the least distressed or hampered by shades of delicacy and scruple, she surely was astute enough to realize that even this bounder’s dullness might be awakened to realize that there was more than a touch of obvious indecency in bringing the girl to the house of the man she had tragically loved, and manœuvering to work her into it as the wife of the man who, monstrously unfit as he was, had taken his place. Captain Palliser knew well that the pressing of the relationship had meant only one thing. And how, in the name of the Furies! had she dragged Lady Joan into the scheme with her?
It was as unbelievable as was the new Temple Barholm himself. And how unconcerned the fellow looked! Perhaps the man he had supplanted was no more to him than a scarcely remembered name, if he was as much as that. Then Tembarom, pacing slowly by his side, hands in pockets, eyes on the walk, spoke:
“Did you ever see Jem Temple Barholm?” he asked.
It was like a thunderbolt. He said it as though he were merely carrying his previous remarks on to their natural conclusion; but Palliser felt himself so suddenly unadjusted, so to speak, that he palpably hesitated.
“Did you?” his companion repeated.