She instantly broke into ardent deprecation, pleading at once and warning. “Father, father, oh—! You hold the thing in your hands.”
He pulled up before her again as to thrust the responsibility straight back. “My orders then are so much rubbish to you?”
Lady Grace held her ground, and they remained face to face in opposition and accusation, neither making the other the sign of peace. But the girl at least had, in her way, held out the olive-branch, while Lord Theign had but reaffirmed his will. It was for her acceptance of this that he searched her, her last word not having yet come. Before it had done so, however, the door from the lobby opened and Mr. Gotch had regained their presence. This appeared to determine in Lady Grace a view of the importance of delay, which she signified to her companion in a “Well—I must think!” For the butler positively resounded, and Hugh was there.
“Mr. Crimble!” Mr. Gotch proclaimed—with the further extravagance of projecting the visitor straight upon his lordship.
VII
Our young man showed another face than the face his friend had lately seen him carry off, and he now turned it distressfully from that source of inspiration to Lord Theign, who was flagrantly, even from this first moment, no such source at all, and then from his noble adversary back again, under pressure of difficulty and effort, to Lady Grace, whom he directly addressed. “Here I am again, you see—and I’ve got my news, worse luck!” But his manner to her father was the next instant more brisk. “I learned you were here, my lord; but as the case is important I told them it was all right and came up. I’ve been to my club,” he added for the girl, “and found the tiresome thing—!” But he broke down breathless.
“And it isn’t good?” she cried with the highest concern.
Ruefully, yet not abjectly, he confessed, “Not so good as I hoped. For I assure you, my lord, I counted—”
“It’s the report from Pappendick about the picture at Verona,” Lady Grace interruptingly explained.