“I’m not in her set.”
“Then decidedly,” he said, “I don’t want to save her. I only want—”
He was going on, but she broke in: “I know what you want!”
He kept his eyes on her till he had made sure—and this deep exchange between them had a beauty. “So you’re now with me?”
“I’m now with you!”
“Then,” said Hugh, “shake hands on it”
He offered her his hand, she took it, and their grasp became, as you would have seen in their fine young faces, a pledge in which they stood a minute locked. Lord Theign came upon them from the saloon in the midst of the process; on which they separated as with an air of its having consisted but of Hugh’s leave-taking. With some such form of mere civility, at any rate, he appeared, by the manner in which he addressed himself to Hugh, to have supposed them occupied.
“I’m sorry my daughter can’t keep you; but I must at least thank you for your interesting view of my picture.”
Hugh indulged in a brief and mute, though very grave, acknowledgment of this expression; presently speaking, however, as on a resolve taken with a sense of possibly awkward consequences: “May I—before you’re sure of your indebtedness—put you rather a straight question, Lord Theign?” It sounded doubtless, and of a sudden, a little portentous—as was in fact testified to by his lordship’s quick stiff stare, full of wonder at so free a note. But Hugh had the courage of his undertaking. “If I contribute in ny modest degree to establishing the true authorship of the work you speak of, may I have from you an assurance that my success isn’t to serve as a basis for any peril—or possibility—of its leaving the country?”
Lord Theign was visibly astonished, but had also, independently of this, turned a shade pale. “You ask of me an ‘assurance’?”