‘He is down at Mr Ford’s house in the country. But–‘
She was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone bell. She was out of her seat and across the room at the receiver with what appeared to Lord Mountry’s startled gaze one bound. As she put the instrument to her ear a wave of joy swept over her face. She gave a little cry of delight and excitement.
‘Send them right up at once,’ she said, and turned to Lord Mountry transformed.
‘Lord Mountry,’ she said quickly, ‘please don’t think me impossibly rude if I turn you out. Some–some people are coming to see me. I must–‘
His lordship rose hurriedly.
‘Of course. Of course. Certainly. Where did I put my–ah, here.’ He seized his hat, and by way of economizing effort, knocked his stick on to the floor with the same movement. Mrs Ford watched his bendings and gropings with growing impatience, till finally he rose, a little flushed but with a full hand–stick, gloves, and hat, all present and correct.
‘Good-bye, then, Mrs Ford, for the present. You’ll let me know if your little boy will be able to make one of our party on the yacht?’
‘Yes, yes. Thank you ever so much. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye.’
He reached the door and opened it.
‘By Jove,’ he said, springing round–‘Stanborough! What about Stanborough? Shall I tell him to wait? He’s down below, you know!’
‘Yes, yes. Tell Mr Stanborough I’m dreadfully sorry to have to keep him waiting, and ask him if he won’t stay for a few minutes in the Palm Room.’
Inspiration came to Lord Mountry.
‘I’ll give him a drink,’ he said.
‘Yes, yes, anything. Lord Mountry, you really must go. I know I’m rude. I don’t know what I’m saying. But–my boy is returning to me.’
The accumulated chivalry of generations of chivalrous ancestors acted like a spur on his lordship. He understood but dimly, yet enough to enable him to realize that a scene was about to take place in which he was most emphatically not ‘on’. A mother’s meeting with her long-lost child, this is a sacred thing. This was quite clear to him, so, turning like a flash, he bounded through the doorway, and, as somebody happened to be coming in at the same time, there was a collision, which left him breathing apologies in his familiar attitude of stooping to pick up his hat.
The new-comers were a tall, strikingly handsome girl, with a rather hard and cynical cast of countenance. She was leading by the hand a small, fat boy of about fourteen years of age, whose likeness to the portrait on the chair proclaimed his identity. He had escaped the collision, but seemed offended by it; for, eyeing the bending peer with cold distaste, he summed up his opinion of him in the one word ‘Chump!’
Lord Mountry rose.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said for perhaps the seventh time. He was thoroughly unstrung. Always excessively shy, he was embarrassed now by quite a variety of causes. The world was full of eyes–Mrs Ford’s saying ‘Go!’ Ogden’s saying ‘Fool!’ the portrait saying ‘Idiot!’ and, finally, the eyes of this wonderfully handsome girl, large, grey, cool, amused, and contemptuous saying–so it seemed to him in that feverish moment–‘Who is this curious pink person who cumbers the ground before me?’
‘I–I beg your pardon.’ he repeated.
‘Ought to look where you’re going,’ said Ogden severely.
‘Not at all,’ said the girl. ‘Won’t you introduce me, Nesta?’
‘Lord Mountry–Miss Drassilis,’ said Mrs Ford.
‘I’m afraid we’re driving Lord Mountry away,’ said the girl. Her eyes seemed to his lordship larger, greyer, cooler, more amused, and more contemptuous than ever. He floundered in them like an unskilful swimmer in deep waters.
‘No, no,’ he stammered. ‘Give you my word. Just going. Good-bye. You won’t forget to let me know about the yacht, Mrs Ford–what? It’ll be an awfully jolly party. Good-bye, good-bye, Miss Drassilis.’
He looked at Ogden for an instant, as if undecided whether to take the liberty of addressing him too, and then, his heart apparently failing him, turned and bolted. From down the corridor came the clatter of a dropped stick.