Love and Lucy. Maurice Hewlett
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denied him, her conscience at work. "No, you mustn't sit down. I shall take you to talk to Lady Bliss. You'll like her."
"No, I shan't," he said. "I can see that. And she'll think I've corrupted her husband." But he had to go. Lingen, also, she recruited for service. He had had a good innings and found himself able to be enthusiastic about Urquhart. He could bear to discuss him—in possible relations with himself, of course. Miss Bacchus sized him up aloud, according to her habit. "Jimmy Urquhart—a good man? Yes, he's a live man. No flies on Jimmy Urquhart. Been everywhere, had a bit of most things. Why, I suppose Jimmy has eaten more things than you've ever read about."
"I've read Brillat-Savarin," said Lingen modestly.
"I dare say Jimmy's had a notch out of him," said Miss Bacchus. "He's what I call a blade."
Lingen didn't ask her what she called him.
CHAPTER IV
AFTER-TALK
Nevertheless the two men talked down to Knightsbridge together, and Lingen did most of the talking. He chose to expand upon Macartney, the nearest he dared get to the subject of his thoughts. "Now Macartney, you know, is a very self-contained man. No doubt you've noticed how he shies at expression. Chilling at times. Good in a lawyer, no doubt. You get the idea of large reserves. But perhaps as a—well, as a father, for instance—That bright boy of theirs now. You may have noticed how little there is between them. What do you think of the Spartan parent—in these days?"
"Oh, I think Mr. Lancelot can hold his own," said Urquhart. "He'll do—with his mother to help. I don't suppose the Spartan boy differed very much from any other kind of boy. Mostly they haven't time to notice anything; but they are sharp as razors when they do."
An eager note could be detected in Francis Lingen's voice, almost a crow. "Ah, you've noticed then! The mother, I mean. Mrs. Macartney. Now, there again, I think our friend overdoes the repression business. A sympathetic attitude means so much to women."
"She'll get it, somewhere," said Urquhart shortly.
"Well," said Lingen, "yes, I suppose so. But there are the qualifications of the martyr in Mrs. Macartney."
"Greensickness," Urquhart proposed; "is that what you mean?"
Lingen stared. "It had not occurred to me. But now you mention it—well, a congestion of the faculties, eh?"
"I don't know anything about it," said Urquhart. "She seemed to me a fond mother, and very properly. Do you mean that Macartney neglects her?"
Lingen was timid by nature. "Perhaps I went further than I should. I think that he takes a great deal for granted."
"I always thought he was a supercilious ass," said Urquhart, "but I didn't know that he was a damned fool."
"I say,"—Lingen was alarmed. "I say, I hope I haven't made mischief." Urquhart relieved him. "Bless you, not with me. I use a lawyer for law. He's no fool there."
"No, indeed," Lingen said eagerly. "I've found him most useful. In fact, I trust him further than any man I know."
"He's a good man," Urquhart said, "and he's perfectly honest. He'd sooner put you off than on, any day. That's very sound in a lawyer. But if he carries it into wedlock he's a damned fool, in my opinion."
They parted on very good terms, Lingen for the Albany, Urquhart elsewhere.
Meantime Lancelot, wriggling in his bed, was discussing Urquhart. "I say, Mamma," he said—a leading question—"do you think Mr. Urquhart really had two wives?"
"No, darling, I really don't. I think he was pulling our legs."
That was bad. "All our legs?"
"All that were pullable. Certainly your two."
"Perhaps he was." Lancelot sighed. "Oh, what happened to the Turk? I forgot him, thinking of his wives. … He said, 'one of my wives,' you know. He might have had six then. … I say, perhaps Mr. Urquhart is a Turk in disguise. What do you think?"
Lucy was sleepy, and covered a yawn. "I don't think, darling. I can't. I'm going to bed, and you are going to sleep. Aren't you now?"
"Yes, of course, yes, of course. Did I tell you about the pirate part? His ship was a brigantine … called the Dog Star."
"Oh, was it?"
"Yes, it was. And he used to hang the chaps, sometimes for treachery, and sometimes for fun."
"How horrid!" said Lucy. "Good night."
"Oh, well," came through the blankets, "of course you don't understand, but I do. Good night." And he was asleep at the turn of that minute.
James had disappeared into his room, so she took herself off to bed. Surely he might have said a word! It had all gone off so well. Mr. Urquhart had been such a success, and she really liked him very much. And how the Judge had taken to him! And how Lancelot! At the first stair she stopped, in three quarters of a mind to go in and screw a sentence out of him. But no! She feared the angry blank of the eyeglass. Trailing up to bed, she thought that she could date the crumbling of her married estate by the ascendency of the eyeglass. And to think, only to think, that when she was engaged to James she used to play with it, to try it in her eye, to hide it from him! Well, she had Lancelot—her darling boy. That brought to mind that, a week to-night, she would be orphaned of him. The day she dreaded was coming again—and the blank weeks and months which followed it.
True to his ideas of "discipline," of the value of doing a thing well for its own sake, Macartney was dry about the merits of the dinner-party when they met at breakfast. "Eh? Oh, yes, I thought it went quite reasonably. Urquhart talked too much, I thought."
"My dear James,"—she was nettled—"you really are—"
He looked up; the eyeglass hovered in his hand. "Plaît-il?"
"Nothing. I only thought that you were hard to please."
"Really? Because I think a man too vivacious?"
Lancelot said to his porridge-bowl, over the spoon, "I think he's ripping."
"You've hit it," said his father. "He'd rip up anybody."
Lucy, piqued upon her tender part, was provoked into what she always avoided if she could—acrimony at breakfast.
"I was hostess, you see; and I must say that the more people talk the more I am obliged to them. I suppose that you asked Mr. Urquhart so that he might be amusing. … "
James's head lifted again. You could see it over the Morning Post. "I asked Urquhart for quite other reasons, you remember."
"I don't know what they were," said Lucy. "My own reason was that he should make things go. 'A party in a parlour … '" She bit her lip. The Morning Post quivered but recovered itself.
"What was the party in a parlour, Mamma? Do tell me." That was Lancelot, with a flair for mischief.
"It was 'all silent and all damned,'" said Lucy.
"Jolly party," said Lancelot. "Not like yours, though." The Morning Post clacked like a bellying sail, then bore forward over an even keel. Lucy, beckoning Lancelot, left the breakfast-room.
She was ruffled, and so much so that Lancelot noticed it, and, being the very soul of tact where she was concerned, spoke neither of his father nor of Urquhart all the morning. In the afternoon the weather seemed more settled, and he allowed himself more play. He would like to see Mr. Urquhart on horseback, in a battle, he thought. He expected