Mr. Caryll found the situation redolent with comedy. He had a quick eye for such matters; so quick an eye that he on the present occasion her ladyship's entire lack of a sense of humor. But for that shortcoming, she might have enjoyed with him the of her having—she, who disliked him so exceedingly—toiled and , robbed herself of sleep, and hoped and prayed with more , perhaps, than she had ever yet hoped and prayed for anything, that his life might be spared.
Her glance shifted presently from him to Hortensia, who had risen and who stood in deep confusion at having been so found by her ladyship, and in deep still arising from the things he had said and from those which he had been hindered from adding by the coming of the countess.
The explanations that had been interrupted might never be renewed; she felt they never would be; he would account that he had said enough; since he was to ask for nothing. And unless the matter were again, what chance had she of combatting his foolish ; for foolish she accounted them; they were of no weight with her, unless, indeed, to heighten the warm feeling that already she had conceived for him.
Her ladyship moved forward a step or two, her fan going gently to and fro, stirring the of the white that formed part of her tall head-dress.
“What were you doing here, child?” she inquired, very coldly.
Mistress Winthrop looked up—a sudden, almost scared glance it was.
“I, madam? Why—I was walking in the garden, and seeing Mr. Caryll here, I came to ask him how he did; to offer to read to him if he would have me.”
“And the Maidstone matter not yet cold in its grave!” commented her ladyship sourly. “As I'm a woman, it is I should be with the care of you that have no care for yourself.”
Hortensia bit her lip, controlling herself bravely, a spot of red in either cheek. Mr. Caryll came to her rescue.
“Your ladyship must confess that Mistress Winthrop has assisted nobly in the care of me, and so, has placed your ladyship in her debt.”
“In my debt?” the countess, aloft, head-dress nodding. “And what of yours?”
“In my clumsy way, ma'am, I have already attempted to convey my thanks to her. It might be in your ladyship to follow my example.”
Mentally Mr. Caryll observed that it is unwise to so heavily as did Lady Ostermore when to anger and to paling under it. The false color looks so very false on such occasions.
Her ladyship struck the ground with her cane. “For what have I to thank her, sir? Will you tell me that, you who seem so very well informed.”
“Why, for her part in saving your son's life, ma'am, if you must have it. Heaven knows,” he continued in his characteristic, half-bantering manner, under which it was so difficult to catch a glimpse of his real feelings, “I am not one to throw services done in the face of folk, but here have Mistress Winthrop and I been doing our best for your son in this matter; she by so nursing me; I by responding to her nursing—and your ladyship's—and so, recovering from my wound. I do not think that your ladyship shows us a becoming . It is but natural that we fellow-workers in your ladyship's and Lord Rotherby's interests, should have a word to say to each other on the score of those which have made us colleagues.”
Her ladyship measured him with a eye. “Are you quite mad, sir?” she asked him.
He and smiled. “It has been against me on occasion. But I think it was pure spite.” Then he waved his hand towards the long seat that stood at the back of the . “Will your ladyship not sit? You will forgive that I urge it in my own interest. They tell me that it is not good for me to stand too long just yet.”
It was his hope that she would depart. Not so. “I cry you mercy!” said she acidly, and to the bench. “Be seated, pray.” She continued to watch them with her baleful glance. “We have heard fine things from you, sir, of what you have both done for my Lord Rotherby,” she , mocking him with the spirit of his half-jest. “Shall I tell you more what 'tis he owes you?”
“Can there be more?” quoth Mr. Caryll, smiling so that he must have a .
Her ladyship ignored him. “He owes it to you both that you have him from his father, set up a between them that is never like to be healed. 'Tis what he owes you.”
“Does he not owe it, rather, to his abandoned ways?” asked Hortensia, in a calm, clear voice, bravely giving back her ladyship look for look.
“Abandoned ways?” screamed the countess. “Is't you that speak of abandoned ways, ye shameless baggage? Faith, ye may be some judge of them. Ye fooled him into running off with you. 'Twas that began all this. Just as with your airs and simpers, and prettily-played innocences you fooled this other, here, into being your champion.”
“Madam, you insult me!” Hortensia was on her feet, eyes flashing, cheeks aflame.
“I am witness to that,” said Lord Ostermore, coming in through the side-entrance.
Mr. Caryll was the only one who had seen him approach. The earl's face that had to be so florid, was now pale and , and he seemed to have lost flesh during the past month. He turned to her ladyship.
“Out on you!” he said , “to the poor child so!”
“Poor child!” her ladyship, eyes raised to heaven to its to this . “Poor child.”
“Let there be an end to it, madam,” he said with attempted sternness. “It is unjust and in you.”
“If it were that—which it is not—it would be but following the example that you set me. What are you but unreasonable and unjust—to treat your son as you are treating him?”
His lordship . On the subject of his son he could be angry in earnest, even with her ladyship, as already we have seen.
“I have no son,” he declared, “there is a , drunken, who bears my name, and who will be Lord Ostermore some day. I can't strip him of that. But I'll strip him of all else that's mine, God me. I beg, my lady, that you'll let me hear no more of this, I beg it. Lord Rotherby leaves my house to-day—now that Mr. Caryll is restored to health. Indeed, he has stayed longer than was necessary. He leaves to-day. He has my orders, and my servants have orders to see that he obeys them. I do not wish to see him again—never. Let him go, and let him be thankful—and be your ladyship thankful, too, since it seems you must have a kindness for him in spite of all he has done to disgrace and us—that he goes not by way of Holborn Hill and Tyburn.”
She looked at him, very white from suppressed fury. “I do believe you had been glad had it been so.”
“,” he answered, “I had been sorry for Mr. Caryll's sake.”
“And for his own?”
“Pshaw!”
“Are you a father?” she wondered contemptuously.
“To my eternal shame, ma'am!” he flung back at her. He seemed, indeed, a changed man in more than body since Mr. Caryll's with Lord Rotherby. “No more, ma'am—no more!” he cried, seeming suddenly to remember the presence of Mr. Caryll, who sat languidly drawing figures on the ground with the ferrule of his cane. He turned to ask the convalescent how he did. Her ladyship rose to withdraw, and at that moment Leduc made his appearance with a salver, on which was a bowl of soup, a of Hock, and a letter. Setting this down in such a manner that the letter was immediately under his master's eyes, he further proceeded to draw Mr. Caryll's attention to it. It was addressed in Sir Richard Everard's hand. Mr. Caryll took it, and slipped it into his pocket. Her ladyship's eyebrows went up.
“Will you not read your letter, Mr. Caryll?” she invited him, with an amazingly sudden change to .
“It will keep, ma'am, to while away an hour that is less pleasantly engaged.” And he took the napkin Leduc was .
“You pay your correspondent a poor compliment,” said she.
“My correspondent is not one to look for them or need them,” he answered lightly, and dipped his spoon in the .
“Is she not?” quoth her ladyship.
Mr. Caryll laughed. “So feminine!” said he. “Ha, ha! So very feminine—to assume the sex so readily.”
“'Tis an easy assumption when the superscription is in a woman's hand.”
Mr. Caryll, the picture of amiability, smiled between spoonfuls. “Your ladyship's eyes preserve not only their beauty but a keenness beyond belief.”
“How could you have seen it from that distance, Sylvia?” inquired his practical lordship.
“Then again,” said her ladyship, ignoring both remarks, “there is the assiduity of this fair writer since Mr. Caryll has been in case to receive letters. Five billets in six days! Deny it if you can, Mr. Caryll.”
Her playfulness, so ill-assumed, sat more awkwardly upon her than her usual and more towards him.
“To what end should I deny it?” he replied, and added in his most ingratiating manner another of his two-edged compliments. “Your ladyship is the model chatelaine. No happening in your household can escape your knowledge. His lordship is greatly to be envied.”
“Yet, you see,” she cried, appealing to her husband, and even to Hortensia, who sat apart, scarce this trivial matter of which so much was being made, “you see that he evades the point, avoids a direct answer to the question that is raised.”
“Since your ladyship perceives it, it were more merciful to spare my invention the of fashioning further . I am a sick man still, and my wits are far from brisk.” He took up the glass of wine Leduc had poured for him.
The countess looked at him again through narrowing , the playfulness all vanished. “You do yourself , sir, as I am a woman. Your wits want nothing more in .” She rose, and looked down upon him in his broth. “For a dissembler, sir,” she pronounced upon him acidly, “I think it would be difficult to meet your match.”
He dropped his spoon into the bowl with a . He looked up, the very picture of and .
“A dissembler, I?” quoth he in earnest protest; then laughed and quoted, adapting,
“'Tis not my talent to my thoughts
Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face
Should discontent sit heavy at my heart.”
She looked him over, pursing her lips. “I've often thought you might have been a player,” said she contemptuously.
“I'faith,” he laughed, “I'd sooner play than .”
“Ay; but you make a toil of play, sir.”
“Compassionate me, ma'am,” he in the best of humors. “I am but a sick man. Your ladyship's too keen for me.”
She moved across to the exit without answering him. “Come, child,” she said to Hortensia. “We are tiring Mr. Caryll, I fear. Let us leave him to his letter, ere it sets his pocket afire.”
Hortensia rose. though she might be to depart, there was no reason she could urge for lingering.
“Is not your lordship coming?” said she.
“Of course he is,” her ladyship commanded. “I need to speak with you yet concerning Rotherby,” she informed him.
“Hem!” His lordship coughed. Plainly he was not at his ease. “I will follow soon. Do not stay for me. I have a word to say to Mr. Caryll.”
“Will it not keep? What can you have to say to him that is so pressing?”
“But a word—no more.”
“Why, then, we'll stay for you,” said her ladyship, and threw him into confusion, hopeless dissembler that he was.
“Nay, nay! I beg that you will not.”
Her ladyship's brows went up; her eyes narrowed again, and a frown came between them. “You are mysterious,” said she, looking from one to the other of the men, and bethinking her that it was not the first time she had found them so; bethinking her, too—jumping, woman-like, to rash conclusions—that in this mystery that linked them might lie the true secret of her husband's aversion to his son and of his oath a month ago to see that same son hang if Mr. Caryll to the wound he had taken. With some women, to suspect a thing is to believe that thing. Her ladyship was of these. She set too high value upon her
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CHAPTER XII. SUNSHINE AND SHADOW Mr. Caryll was almost happy.
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CHAPTER XIV. LADY OSTERMORE
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