Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/298

284 flurried, breathless Lord John, strikingly different from the backward messenger she had lately seen despatched. "But Theign should be here!"—he addressed her excitedly. "I announce you a call from the Prince."

"The Prince?"—she gasped as for the burden of the honour. "He follows you?"

Mr. Bender, with an eagerness and a candour there was no mistaking, recognised on behalf of his ampler action a world of associational advantage and auspicious possibility. "Is the Prince after the thing?"

Lord John remained, in spite of this challenge, conscious of nothing but his message. "He was there with Mackintosh—to see and admire the picture; which he thinks, by the way, a Mantovano pure and simple!—and did me the honour to remember me. When he heard me report to Mackintosh in his presence the sentiments expressed to me here by our noble friend and of which, embarrassed though I doubtless was," the young man pursued to Lady Sandgate, "I gave as clear an account as I could, he was so delighted with it that he declared they mustn't think then of taking the thing off, but must on the contrary keep