Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/170

156 "Lady Sandgate kindly warned me, and," her companion saw as he glanced at the clock on the chimney, "I've only ten minutes at best. The 'Journal' won't have been good for him," he added—"you doubtless have seen the 'Journal'?"

"No"—she was vague. "We live by the 'Morning Post.'"

"That's why our friend here didn't speak then," Hugh said with a better light—"which, out of a dim consideration for her, I didn't do either. But they've a leader this morning about Lady Lappington and her Longhi, and on Bender and his hauls, and on the certainty—if we don't do something energetic—of more and more Benders to come: such a conquering horde as invaded the old civilisation, only armed now with huge cheque-books instead of with spears and battle-axes. They refer to the rumour current—as too horrific to believe—of Lord Theign's putting up his Moretto; with the question of how properly to qualify any such sad purpose in him should the further report prove true of a new and momentous opinion about the picture entertained by several eminent authorities."