Page:The Private Life, Lord Beaupré, The Visits (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893).djvu/75

Rh "If I can get at the one who does it"—and she paused, with shining eyes—"if I can have it out with him I shall get my part!"

"I'll keep Vawdrey forever!" I called after her as she passed quickly into the house.

Her audacity was communicative, and I stood there in a glow of excitement, I looked at Lord Mellifont's water-color and I looked at the gathering storm; I turned my eyes again to his lordship's windows, and then I bent them on my watch. Vawdrey had so little the start of me that I should have time to overtake him—time even if I should take five minutes to go up to Lord Mellifont's sitting-room (where we had all been hospitably received), and say to him, as a messenger, that Mrs. Adney begged he would bestow upon his sketch the high consecration of his signature. As I again considered this work of art I perceived there was something it certainly did lack: what else then but so noble an autograph? It was my duty to suppy [sic] the deficiency without delay, and in accordance with this conviction I instantly re-entered the hotel. I