because of her. If she makes him pay her that preposterous allowance, of course it will be too expensive. But I don't mean him to pay it."
"Lady Tressady is terribly extravagant," murmured Miss Tulloch.
"Well, so long as she isn't extravagant with his money—our money—I don't care a rap," said Letty; "only she sha'n't spend all her own and all ours too, which is what she has been doing. When George was away he let her live at Ferth, and spend almost all the income, except five hundred a year that he kept for himself. And then she got so shamefully into debt that he doesn't know when he shall ever clear her. He gave her money at Christmas, and again, I am sure, just lately. Well! all I know is that it must be stopped. I don't know that I shall be able to do much till I'm married, but I mean to make him take this house."
"Is Lady Tressady nice to you? She is in town, isn't she?"
"Oh yes! she's in town. Nice?" said Letty, with a little laugh. "She can't bear me, of course; but we're quite civil."
"I thought she tried to bring it on?" said the confidante, anxious, above all things, to be sympathetic.
"Well, she brought him to the Corfields, and let me know she had. I don't know why she did it. I suppose she wanted to get something out of him. Ah! there he is!"
And Letty stood up, smiling and beckoning, while Tressady's tall thin figure made its way along the central passage.
"Horrid House! What made you so late?" she said, as he sat down between her and Miss Tulloch.
George Tressady looked at her with delight. The shrewish contractions in the face, which had been very evident to Tully a few minutes before, had all disappeared, and the sharp slight lines of it seemed to George the height of delicacy. At sight of him colour and eyes had brightened. Yet at the same time there was not a trace of the raw girl about her. She knew very well that he had no taste for ingénues, and she was neither nervous nor sentimental in his company.
"Do you suppose I should have stayed a second longer than I was obliged?" he asked her, smiling, pressing her little hand under pretence of taking her programme.
The first notes of a new Brahms quartette mounted, thin and sweet, into the air. The musical portion of the audience, having come for this particular morsel, prepared themselves eagerly for the tasting and trying of it. George and Letty tried to say a few things more to each other before yielding to the general silence, but an old gentleman in front turned upon them a face of such disdain and fury they must needs laugh and desist.
Not that George was unwilling. He was tired; and silence with Letty beside him was not only repose, but pleasure. Moreover, he derived a certain honest pleasure of a mixed sort from music. It suggested literary or pictorial ideas to him which stirred him, and gave him a sense of enjoyment. Now, as the playing flowed on, it called up delightful images in his brain: of woody places, of whirling forms, of quiet rivers, of thin trees Corot-like against the sky—scenes of pleading, of frolic, reproachful pain, dissolving joy. With it all mingled his own story, his own feeling; his pride of possession in this white creature touching him; his sense of youth, of opening life, of a crowded stage whereon his "cue" had just been given, his "call" sounded. He listened with eagerness, welcoming each fancy as it floated past, conscious of a grain of self-abandonment even—a rare mood with him. He was not absorbed in love by any means; the music spoke to him of a hundred other kindling or enchanting things. Nevertheless it made it doubly pleasant to be there, with Letty beside him. He was quite satisfied with himself and her; quite certain that he had done everything for the best. All this the music in some way emphasised—made clear.
When it was over, and the applause was subsiding, Letty said in his ear:
"Have you settled about the house?"
He smiled down upon her, not hearing what she said, but admiring her dress, its little complication and subtleties, the violets that perfumed every movement, the slim fingers holding the fan. Her mere ways of personal adornment were to him like pleasant talk. They surprised and amused him—stood between him and ennui.
She repeated her question.
A frown crossed his brow, and the face changed wholly.
"Ah!—it is so difficult to see one's way," he said, with a little sigh of annoyance.
Letty played with her fan, and was silent.
"Do you so much prefer it to the others?" he asked her.
Letty looked up with astonishment.
"Why, it is a house!" she said, lifting her eyebrows; "and the others—"
"Hovels? Well, you are about right. The small London house is an abomination. Perhaps I can make them take less premium."
Letty shook her head.
"It is not at all a dear house," she said decidedly.
He still frowned, with the look of one recalled to an annoyance he had shaken off.
"Well, darling, if you wish it so much, that settles it. Promise to be still nice to me when we go through the Bankruptcy Court!"
"We will let lodgings, and I will do the waiting," said Letty, just laying her hand lightly against his for an instant. "Just think! That house would draw like anything. Of course, we will only take the eldest sons of peers. By the way, do you see Lord Fontenoy?"
They were in the middle of the "interval," and almost everyone about them, including Miss Tulloch, was standing up, talking or examining their neighbours.
George craned his neck round Miss Tulloch, and saw Fontenoy sitting beside a lady, on the other side of the middle gangway.
"Who is the lady?" Letty inquired. "I saw her with him the other night at the Foreign Office."
George smiled.
"That—if you want to know—is Fontenoy's story!"
"Oh, but tell me at once!" said Letty, imperiously. "But he hasn't got a story, or a heart. He's only stuffed with blue-book."
"So I thought till a few weeks ago. But I know a good deal more now about Master Fontenoy than I did."
"But who is she?"
"She is a Mrs. Allison. Isn't that white hair beautiful? And her face—half saint, I always think—you might take her for a mother-abbess—and half princess. Did you ever see such diamonds?"
George pulled his moustaches, and grinned as he looked across at Fontenoy.
"Tell me quick!" said Letty, tapping him on the arm—"Is she a widow?—and is he going to marry her? Why didn't you tell me before?—why didn't you tell me at Malford?"
"Because I didn't know," said George, laughing. "Oh! it's a strange story—too long to tell now. She is a widow, but he is not going to marry her, apparently. She has a grown-up son, who hasn't yet found himself a wife, and thinks it isn't fair to him. If Fontenoy wants to introduce her, don't refuse. She is the mistress of Castle Luton, and has delightful parties. Yes!—if I'd known at Malford what I know now!"
And he laughed again, remembering Fontenoy's nocturnal incursion upon him, and its apparent object. Who would have imagined that the preacher of that occasion had ever given one serious thought to woman and woman's arts—least of all that he was the creation and slave of a woman!
Letty's curiosity was piqued, and she would have plied George with questions, but that she suddenly perceived that Fontenoy had risen, and was coming across to them.
"Gracious!" she said; "here he comes. I can't think why; he doesn't like me."
Fontenoy, however, when he had made his way to them, greeted Miss Sewell with as much apparent cordiality as he showed to anyone else. He had received George's news of the marriage with all decorum, and had since sent a handsome wedding-present to the bride-elect. Letty, however, was never at ease with him, which, indeed, was the case with most women.
He stood beside the fiances for a minute or two, exchanging a few commonplaces