Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/184

178 you must come very soon and let me show it you.'

'We shall have our own too,' Mrs. Jordan replied; 'for, don't you know, he makes it a condition that he sleeps out?'

'A condition?'—the girl felt out of it.

'For any new position. It was on that he parted with Lord Rye. His lordship can't meet it; so Mr. Drake has given him up.'

'And all for you?'—our young woman put it as cheerfully as possible.

'For me and Lady Bradeen. Her ladyship's too glad to get him at any price. Lord Rye, out of interest in us, has in fact quite made her take him. So, as I tell you, he will have his own establishment.'

Mrs. Jordan, in the elation of it, had begun to revive; but there was nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause—a pause in which neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an invitation. It expressed in the last resort that, in spite of submission and sympathy, they could now, after all, only look at each other across the social gulf. They remained together