“Tommie?” suggested Lady Lydiard, still watching her nephew as maliciously as ever.
“That’s it!” cried Felix, seizing his excuse, and rallying his spirits. “Why don’t I hear Tommie snarling behind me; why don’t I feel Tommie’s teeth in my trousers?”
The smile vanished from Lady Lydiard’s face; the tone taken by her nephew in speaking of her dog was disrespectful in the extreme. She showed him plainly that she disapproved of it. Felix went on, nevertheless, impenetrable to reproof of the silent sort. “Dear little Tommie! So delightfully fat; and such an infernal temper! I don’t know whether I hate him or love him. Where is he?”
“Ill in bed,” answered her ladyship, with a gravity which startled even Felix himself. “I wish to speak to you about Tommie. You know everybody. Do you know of a good dog-doctor? The person I have employed so far doesn’t at all satisfy me.”
“Professional person?” inquired Felix.
“Yes.”
“All humbugs, my dear aunt. The worse the dog gets the bigger the bill grows, don’t you see? I have got the man for you—a gentleman. Knows more about horses and dogs than all the veterinary surgeons put together. We met in the boat yesterday crossing the Channel. You know him by name, of course? Lord Rotherfield’s youngest son, Alfred Hardyman.”
“The owner of the stud farm? The man who has bred the famous racehorses?” cried Lady Lydiard. “My dear Felix, how can I presume to trouble such a great personage about my dog?”
Felix burst into his genial laugh. “Never was modesty more woefully out of place,” he rejoined. “Hardyman is dying to be presented to your Ladyship. He has heard, like everybody, of the magnificent decorations of this house, and he is longing to see them. His chambers are close by, in Pall Mall. If he is at home we will have him here in five minutes. Perhaps I had better see the dog first?”
Lady Lydiard shook her head. “Isabel says he had better not be disturbed,” she answered. “Isabel understands him better than anybody.”
Felix lifted his lively eyebrows with a mixed expression of curiosity and surprise. “Who is Isabel?”
Lady Lydiard was vexed with herself for carelessly mentioning Isabel’s name in her nephew’s presence. Felix was not the sort of person whom she was desirous of admitting to her confidence in domestic matters. “Isabel is an addition to my household since you were here last,” she answered shortly.
“Young and pretty?” inquired Felix. “Ah! you look serious, and you don’t answer me. Young and pretty, evidently. Which may I see first, the addition to your household or the addition to your picture-gallery? You look at the picture-gallery—I am answered again.” He rose to approach the archway, and stopped at his first step forward. “A sweet girl is a dreadful responsibility, aunt,” he resumed, with an ironical assumption of gravity. “Do you know, I shouldn’t be surprised if Isabel, in the long run, cost you more than Hobbema. Who is this at the door?”
The person at the door was Robert Moody, returned from the bank. Mr. Felix Sweetsir, being near-sighted, was obliged to fit his eye-glass in position before he could recognize the prime minister of Lady Lydiard’s household.
“Ha! our worthy Moody. How well he wears! Not a gray hair on his head—and look at mine! What dye do you use, Moody? If he had my open disposition he would tell. As it is, he looks unutterable things, and holds his tongue. Ah! if I could only have held my tongue—when I was in the diplomatic service, you know—what a position I might have occupied by this time! Don’t let me interrupt you, Moody, if you have anything to say to Lady Lydiard.”
Having acknowledged Mr. Sweetsir’s lively greeting by a formal bow, and a grave look of wonder which respectfully repelled that vivacious gentleman’s flow of humor, Moody turned towards his mistress.
“Have you got the bank-note?” asked her Ladyship.
Moody laid the bank-note on the table.
“Am I in the way?” inquired Felix.
“No,” said his aunt. “I have a letter to write; it won’t occupy me for more than a few minutes. You can stay here, or go and look at the Hobbema, which you please.”
Felix made a second sauntering attempt to reach the picture-gallery. Arrived within a few steps of the entrance, he stopped again, attracted by an open cabinet of Italian workmanship, filled with rare old china. Being nothing if not a cultivated amateur, Mr. Sweetsir paused to pay his passing tribute of admiration before the contents of the cabinet. “Charming! charming!” he said to himself, with his head twisted appreciatively a little on one side. Lady Lydiard and Moody left him in undisturbed enjoyment of the china, and went on with the business of the bank-note.
“Ought we to take the number of the note, in case of accident?” asked her Ladyship.
Moody produced a slip of paper from his waistcoat pocket. “I took the number, my Lady, at the bank.”
“Very well. You keep it. While I am writing my letter, suppose you direct the envelope. What is the clergyman’s name?”
Moody mentioned the name and directed the envelope. Felix, happening to look round at Lady Lydiard and the steward while they were both engaged in writing, returned suddenly to the table as if he had been struck by a new idea.
“Is there a third pen?” he asked. “Why shouldn’t I write a line at once to Hardyman, aunt? The sooner you have his opinion about Tommie the better—don’t you think so?”
Lady Lydiard pointed to the pen tray, with a smile. To show consideration for her dog was to seize irresistibly on the high-road to her favor. Felix set to work on his letter, in a large scrambling handwriting, with plenty of ink and a noisy pen. “I declare we are like clerks in an office,” he remarked, in his cheery way. “All with our noses to the paper, writing as if we lived by it! Here, Moody, let one of the servants take this at once to Mr. Hardyman’s.”
The messenger was despatched. Robert returned, and waited near his mistress, with the directed envelope in his hand. Felix sauntered back slowly towards the picture-gallery, for the third time. In a moment more Lady Lydiard finished her letter, and folded up the bank-note in it. She had just taken the directed envelope from Moody, and had just placed the letter inside it, when a scream from the inner room, in which Isabel was nursing the sick dog, startled everybody. “My Lady! my Lady!” cried the girl, distractedly, “Tommie is in a fit? Tommie is dying!”
Lady Lydiard dropped the unclosed envelope on the table, and ran—yes, short as she was and fat as she was, ran—into the inner room. The two men, left together, looked at each other.
“Moody,” said Felix, in his lazily-cynical way, “do you think if you or I were in a fit that her Ladyship would run? Bah! these are the things that shake one’s faith in human nature. I feel infernally seedy. That cursed Channel passage—I tremble in my inmost stomach when I think of it. Get me something, Moody.”
“What shall I send you, sir?” Moody asked coldly.
“Some dry curacoa and a biscuit. And let it be brought to me in the picture-gallery. Damn the dog! I’ll go and look at Hobbema.”
This time he succeeded in reaching the archway, and disappeared behind the curtains of the picture-gallery.
CHAPTER IV.
LEFT alone in the drawing-room, Moody looked at the unfastened envelope on the table.
Considering the value of the inclosure, might he feel justified in wetting the gum and securing the envelope for safety’s sake? After thinking it over, Moody decided that he was not justified in meddling with the letter. On reflection, her Ladyship might have changes to make in it or might have a postscript to add to what she had already written. Apart too, from these considerations,