Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/312

298 reached for paper and a pen when, struck apparently with the display of some incongruous object, he uttered a sharp "Hallo!"

"You don't find things?" Lady Grace asked—as remote from him in one quarter of the room as Hugh was in another.

"On the contrary!" he oddly replied. But plainly suppressing any further surprise he committed a few words to paper and put them into an envelope, which he addressed and brought away.

"If you like," said Hugh urbanely, "I'll carry him that myself."

"But how do you know what it consists of?"

"I don't know. But I risk it."

His lordship weighed the proposition in a high impersonal manner—he even nervously weighed his letter, shaking it with one hand upon the finger-tips of the other; after which, as finally to acquit himself of any measureable obligation, he allowed Hugh, by a surrender of the interesting object, to redeem his offer of service. "Then you'll learn," he simply said.

"And may I learn?" asked Lady Grace.

"You?" The tone made so light of her that it was barely interrogative.