Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/31

Rh fear of seeing her too much as I want to see her."

There was an appeal in it that Lady Sandgate might have been moved to meet. "Are you absolutely in earnest about her?"

"Of course I am—why shouldn't I be? But," he said with impatience, "I want help."

"Very well then, that's what Lady Imber's giving you." And as it appeared to take him time to read into these words their full sense, she produced others, and so far did help him—though the effort was in a degree that of her exhibiting with some complacency her own unassisted control of stray signs and shy lights. "By telling her, by bringing it home to her, that if she'll make up her mind to accept you the Duchess will do the handsome thing. Handsome, I mean, by Kitty."

Lord John, appropriating for his convenience the truth in this, yet regarded it as open to a becoming, an improving touch from himself. "Well, and by me." To which he added, with more of a challenge in it: "But you really know what my mother will do?"

"By my system," Lady Sandgate smiled,