TWENTY EIGHT
1135 Words
"Oh, no!" she said, with strong revulsion. "You are mistaken. Such a notion is unthinkable".
He made a movement as though he would have taken her hand, but controlled it, and said with an earnest look, "I am glad".
"You have something against him?" she said quickly.
"Nothing. If I was afraid - if I disliked the thought that there might be some partiality, you must forgive me. I could not help myself. But I have said too much. Speak to Lord Clements about Parte. Surely he cannot want him to be growing wild!"
She was a good deal stirred by this speech, and by the look that went with it. She was not in the least displeased. She liked him too well, but she wished him to say no more. A declaration seemed to be imminent. She was thankful that he did not make it, she did not know her own heart.
His advice was too sensible to be lightly ignored. She thought about it, realized the justice of what he had said, and went to call on Clements, driving herself in her phaeton. To request his coming to Spear Street would mean the presence of Mrs Andromeda. She supposed there would be no impropriety in a ward's visit to her guardian.
She was ushered into the saloon, but after a few minutes the footman came back, and requested that she follows him. She was led up one pair of stairs to his lordship's private room, and announced.
The Earl was standing at a table by the window, dipping a sort of iron skewer into what looked to be a wine bottle. On the table were several sheets of parchment, a sieve, two glass phials, and a pestle and mortar of turned boxwood.
Miss Tellaro stared in considerable surprise, being quite unable to imagine what the Earl could be doing. The room was lined with shelves that bore any number of highly glazed jars and lead canisters. They were all labeled, with such queer sounding names as Scholten, Curaçao, Masulipatan, Bureau Demi-Gros, Bolongaro, Old Paris. She turned her eyes inquiringly toward his lordship, still absorbed in his bottle and skewer.
"You must forgive me for receiving you here, Miss Tellaro, but I am extremely occupied", he said. "It would be fatal for me to leave the mixture in its present state, or I would have come to you. Have you left Glory Andromeda down stairs, may I ask?"
"She is not with me. I came alone, sir".
There seemed to be a fine powder in the wine bottle. The Earl had extracted a little with the aid of the skewer and dropped it into the mortar, and had begun to mix it with what was already there, but he paused at Miss Tellaro's words, and looked across at her in a way hard to read. Then his gaze returned to the mortar, and he went on with his work. "Indeed? You honor me. Will you not sit down?"
She colored faintly, but drew forward a chair. "Perhaps you may think it odd in me, sir, but the truth is I have something to say to you I do not care to say before Mrs Andromeda".
"I am entirely at your service, Miss Tellaro".
She pulled off her gloves and began smoothing them. "It is with considerable reluctance that I have come, Lord Clements. But my cousin, Mr Tellaro, advised me - and I cannot but feel that he was right. Your are after all our guardian".
"Proceed, my ward. Has Xervia Snipes made you an offer of marriage?"
"Good heavens, no!" said Elizabeth.
"He will", said his lordship in a cool way.
"I hadn't not come about my own affairs, sir. I desire to talk to you of Patrick".
"Life is full of disappointments", commented Clements. "Which sponging house is he in?"
"He is not in any", said Elizabeth stiffly. "Though I have little doubt that he is where he will end if something is not done to prevent him".
"More than likely", agreed Clements. "It won't hurt him".
He picked up one of the phials from the table and delicately poured a few drops of what it contained on to his mixture.
Elizabeth rose. "I see, sir, that I waste my time. You are not interested".
"Not particularly", admitted the Earl, setting the bottle down again. "The intelligence you have so far imparted has not been of a very interesting nature, has it?"
"It does not interest you, Lord Clements, that your ward is got into a wild set of company who cannot do him any good?"
"No, not at all. I expected it", said Clements. He looked up with a slight smile. "What has he been doing to alarm his careful sister?"
"I think you know very well, sir. He is for ever at gaming clubs, and, I am afraid - I am nearly sure - worse than that. He has spoken of a house off St George's Street".
"In Pickering Place?" he inquired.
"I believe so", she said in a troubled voice.
"Number Five", he nodded. "I know it - a hell. Who introduced him to it?"
"I am not perfectly sure, but I think it was Mr Friday".
He was shaking his mixture over one of the sheets of parchment. "Mr Friday?" he repeated.
"You know him, sir?"
His occupation seemed to demand all his attention, but after a moment he said, ignoring her question, "I gather, Miss Tellaro, that you consider it is for me to - er - guide Patrick's footsteps on to more sober paths?"
"You are his guardian, sir".
"I am aware. I fulfilled my part to admiration when I put his name up for the two most exclusive clubs in London. I cannot remember having done as much for anyone else in the whole course of my existence".
"You think you did well for Part when you introduced him to a gaming club?" demanded Elizabeth.
"Certainly".
"No doubt you will still be thinking so when he has handed the whole of his fortune away!"
"On one point you may be rest assured, Miss Tellaro. While I hold the purse strings Parte will not game his fortune away".
"And after? What then, when he has learned this passion for gaming?"
"By that time I trust he will be a little wiser", said the Earl.
"I should have known better than to have come to you", Elizabeth said bitterly.
He turned his head. "Not at all. You were quite right to come to me. The mistake you made was in thinking that I did not know of Parte's doings. He is behaving very much as I supposed he would. But you will no doubt have noticed that it is not causing me any particular degree of anxiety".
- Writer
