The Outcry | Page 9

and
turning away after having watched the girl a moment. She nevertheless
presently faced her again to follow this speculation up. "Do you like
him enough to risk the chance of Kitty's being for once right?"
Lady Grace gave it a thought--with which she moved away. "I don't
know how much I like him!"
"Nor how little!" cried her friend, who evidently found amusement in
the tone of it. "And you're not disposed to take the time to find out?
He's at least better than the others."
"The 'others'?"--Lady Grace was blank for them.
"The others of his set."
"Oh, his set! That wouldn't be difficult--by what I imagine of some of
them. But he means well enough," the girl added; "he's very charming
and does me great honour."
It determined in her companion, about to leave her, another brief arrest.
"Then may I tell your father?"
This in turn brought about in Lady Grace an immediate drop of the
subject. "Tell my father, please, that I'm expecting Mr. Crimble; of
whom I've spoken to him even if he doesn't remember, and who
bicycles this afternoon ten miles over from where he's staying--with
some people we don't know--to look at the pictures, about which he's
awfully keen."

Lady Sandgate took it in. "Ah, like Mr. Bender?"
"No, not at all, I think, like Mr. Bender."
This appeared to move in the elder woman some deeper thought "May I
ask then--if one's to meet him--who he is?"
"Oh, father knows--or ought to--that I sat next him, in London, a month
ago, at dinner, and that he then told me he was working, tooth and nail,
at what he called the wonderful modern science of
Connoisseurship--which is upsetting, as perhaps you're not aware, all
the old-fashioned canons of art-criticism, everything we've stupidly
thought right and held dear; that he was to spend Easter in these parts,
and that he should like greatly to be allowed some day to come over
and make acquaintance with our things. I told him," Lady Grace wound
up, "that nothing would be easier; a note from him arrived before
dinner----"
Lady Sandgate jumped the rest "And it's for him you've come in."
"It's for him I've come in," the girl assented with serenity.
"Very good--though he sounds most detrimental! But will you first just
tell me this--whether when you sent in ten minutes ago for Lord John to
come out to you it was wholly of your own movement?" And she
followed it up as her young friend appeared to hesitate. "Was it because
you knew why he had arrived?"
The young friend hesitated still. "'Why '?"
"So particularly to speak to you."
"Since he was expected and mightn't know where I was," Lady Grace
said after an instant, "I wanted naturally to be civil to him."
"And had he time there to tell you," Lady Sand-gate asked, "how very
civil he wants to be to you?"
"No, only to tell me that his friend--who's off there--was coming; for

Kitty at once appropriated him and was still in possession when I came
away." Then, as deciding at last on perfect frankness, Lady Grace went
on: "If you want to know, I sent for news of him because Kitty insisted
on my doing so; saying, so very oddly and quite in her own way, that
she herself didn't wish to 'appear in it.' She had done nothing but say to
me for an hour, rather worryingly, what you've just said--that it's me
he's what, like Mr. Bender, she calls 'after'; but as soon as he appeared
she pounced on him, and I left him--I assure you quite resignedly--in
her hands."
"She wants"--it was easy for Lady Sandgate to remark--"to talk of you
to him."
"I don't know what she wants," the girl replied as with rather a tired
patience; "Kitty wants so many things at once. She always wants
money, in quantities, to begin with--and all to throw so horribly away;
so that whenever I see her 'in' so very deep with any one I always
imagine her appealing for some new tip as to how it's to be come by."
"Kitty's an abyss, I grant you, and with my disinterested devotion to
your father--in requital of all his kindness to me since Lord Sandgate's
death and since your mother's--I can never be too grateful to you, my
dear, for your being so different a creature. But what is she going to
gain financially," Lady Sand-gate pursued with a strong emphasis on
her adverb, "by working up our friend's confidence in your listening to
him--if you are to listen?"
"I haven't in the least engaged to listen," said Lady Grace--"it will
depend on the music he makes!" But she added with light cynicism:
"Perhaps she's to gain a commission!"
"On