Part 23 (1/2)

”Yes-Mr. Littlemore. He has a sister whom I've met; I didn't know she was his sister till to-day. Mrs. Headway spoke of her, but I find she doesn't know her. That itself is a proof, I think. Do you think _he_ would help me?” Lady Demesne asked very simply.

”I doubt it, but you can try.”

”I wish he had come with you. Do you think he'd come?”

”He's in America at this moment, but I believe he soon comes back.”

She took this in with interest. ”I shall go to his sister; I shall ask her to bring him to see me. She's extremely nice; I think she'll understand. Unfortunately there's very little time.”

Waterville bethought himself. ”Don't count too much on George Littlemore,” he said gravely.

”You men have no pity,” she grimly sighed.

”Why should we pity you? How can Mrs. Headway hurt such a person as you?” he asked.

Lady Demesne cast about. ”It hurts me to hear her voice.”

”Her voice is very liquid.” He liked his word.

”Possibly. But she's horrible!”

This was too much, it seemed to Waterville; Nancy Beck was open to criticism, and he himself had declared she was a barbarian. Yet she wasn't horrible. ”It's for your son to pity you. If he doesn't how can you expect it of others?”

”Oh but he does!” And with a majesty that was more striking even than her logic his hostess moved to the door.

Waterville advanced to open it for her, and as she pa.s.sed out he said: ”There's one thing you can do-try to like her!”

She shot him a woeful glance. ”That would be-worst of all!”

VIII

George Littlemore arrived in London on the twentieth of May, and one of the first things he did was to go and see Waterville at the Legation, where he mentioned that he had taken for the rest of the season a house at Queen Anne's Gate, so that his sister and her husband, who, under the pressure of diminished rents, had let their own town residence, might come up and spend a couple of months with him.

”One of the consequences of your having a house will be that you'll have to entertain the Texan belle,” our young man said.

Littlemore sat there with his hands crossed on his stick; he looked at his friend with an eye that failed to kindle at the mention of this lady's name. ”Has she got into European society?” he rather languidly inquired.

”Very much, I should say. She has a house and a carriage and diamonds and everything handsome. She seems already to know a lot of people; they put her name in the _Morning Post_. She has come up very quickly; she's almost famous. Every one's asking about her-you'll be plied with questions.”

Littlemore listened gravely. ”How did she get in?”

”She met a large party at Longlands and made them all think her great fun. They must have taken her up; she only wanted a start.”

Her old friend rallied after a moment to the interest of this news, marking his full appreciation of it by a burst of laughter. ”To think of Nancy Beck! The people here do beat the Dutch! There's no one they won't go after. They wouldn't touch her in New York.”

”Oh New York's quite old-fas.h.i.+oned and rococo,” said Waterville; and he announced to Littlemore that Lady Demesne was very eager for his arrival and wanted his aid to prevent her son's bringing such a person into the family. Littlemore was apparently not alarmed at her ladys.h.i.+p's projects, and intimated, in the manner of a man who thought them rather impertinent, that he could trust himself to keep out of her way. ”It isn't a proper marriage at any rate,” the second secretary urged.

”Why not if he loves her?”

”Oh if that's all you want!”-which seemed a degree of cynicism startling to his companion.