Compassionate me, Heaven!" She rose, too, and turned to Mr. Caryll. "You, sir," she said to him, "you have been dragged into this, I know not why."She broke off suddenly, looking at him, her eyes a pair of gimlets now for penetration. "Why have you been dragged into it?" she demanded. "What is here? I demand to know. What help does my lord expect from you that he tells you this? Does he - " She paused an instant, a cunning smile breaking over her wrinkled, painted face. "Does he propose to sell himself to the king over the water, and are you a secret agent come to do the buying? Is that the answer to this riddle?"Mr. Caryll, imperturbable outwardly, but very ill at ease within, smiled and waved the delicate hand that appeared through the heavy ruffle at his wrist. "Madam, indeed - ah -your ladyship goes very fast. You leap so at conclusions for which no grounds can exist. His lordship is so overwrought -as well he may be, alas! - that he cares not before whom he speaks. Is it not plainly so?"She smiled very sourly. "You are a very master of evasion, sir. But your evasion gives me the answer that I lack - that and his lordship's face. I drew my bow at a venture; yet look, sir, and tell me, has my quarrel missed its mark?"And, indeed, the sudden fear and consternation written on my lord's face was so plain that all might read it. He was - as Mr. Caryll had remarked on the first occasion that they met -the worst dissembler that ever set hand to a conspiracy. He betrayed himself at every step, if not positively, by incautious words, why then by the utter lack of control he had upon his countenance.
He made now a wild attempt to bluster. "Lies! Lies!" he protested. "Your ladyship's a-dreaming. Should I be making bad worse by plotting at my time of life? Should I? What can King James avail me, indeed ?""'Tis what I will ask Rotherby to help me to discover," she informed him.
"Rotherby?" he cried. "Would you tell that villain what you suspect? Would you arm him with another weapon for my undoing?""Ha!" said she. "You admit so much, then?" And she laughed disdainfully. Then with a sudden sternness, a sudden nobility almost in the motherhood which she put forward - "Rotherby is my son," she said, "and I'll not have my son the victim of your follies as well as of your injustice. We may curb the one and the other yet, my lord."And she swept out, fan going briskly in one hand, her long ebony cane swinging as briskly in the other.
"O God!" groaned Ostermore, and sat down heavily.
Mr. Caryll helped himself copiously to snuff. "I think," said he, his voice so cool that it had an almost soothing influence, "I think your lordship has now another reason why you should go no further in this matter.""But if I do not - what other hopes have I? Damn me! I'm a ruined man either way.""Nay, nay," Mr. Caryll reminded him. "Assuming even that you are correctly informed, and that his Grace of Wharton is determined to move against you, it is not to be depended that he will succeed in collecting such evidence as he must need.
At this date much of the evidence that may once have been available will have been dissipated. You are rash to despair so soon.""There is that," his lordship admitted thoughtfully, a little hopefully, even; "there is that." And with the resilience of his nature - of men who form opinions on slight grounds, and, therefore, are ready to change them upon grounds as slight -"I' faith! I may have been running to meet my trouble. 'Tis but a rumor, after all, that Wharton is for mischief, and - as you say - as like as not there'll be no evidence by now..
There was little enough at the time.
"Still, I'll make doubly sure. My letter to King James can do no harm. We'll talk of it again, when you are in case to travel."It passed through Mr. Caryll's mind at the moment that Lady Ostermore and her son might between them brew such mischief as might seriously hinder him from travelling, and he was very near the truth. For already her ladyship was closeted with Rotherby in her boudoir.
The viscount was dressed for travelling, intent upon withdrawing to the country, for he was well-informed already of the feeling of the town concerning him, and had no mind to brave the slights and cold-shoulderings that would await him did he penetrate to any of the haunts of people of quality and fashion. He stood before his mother now, a tall, lank figure, his black face very gloomy, his sensual lips thrust forward in a sullen pout. She, in a gilt arm-chair before her toilet-table, was telling him the story of what had passed, his father's fear of ruin and disgrace. He swore between his teeth when he heard that the danger threatened from the Duke of Wharton.
