Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/158

144 here to Mr. Bender, who is particularly to wait for him."

"And who may therefore arrive at any moment?"

She looked at her bracelet watch. "Scarcely before noon. So you'll just have your chance"

"Thank the powers then!"—Hugh grasped at it. "I shall have it best if you'll be so good as to tell me first—well," he faltered, "what it is that, to my great disquiet, you've further alluded to; what it is that has occurred."

Lady Sandgate took her time, but her good-nature and other sentiments pronounced. "Haven't you at least guessed that she has fallen under her father's extreme reprobation?"

"Yes, so much as that—that she must have greatly annoyed him—I have been supposing. But isn't it by her having asked me to act for her? I mean about the Mantovano—which I have done."

Lady Sandgate wondered. "You've 'acted'?"

"It's what I've come to tell her at last—and I'm all impatience."

"I see, I see"—she had caught a clue.