Mr. Langhope, who sat smoking, with one faultlessly-clad leg crossed on the other, and his ebony stick reposing against the arm of his chair, raised his clear ironical eyes to her face.
“As an archæologist,” he said, with a comprehensive wave of his hand, “I find it positively interesting. I should really like to come here and dig.”
There were no lamps in the room, and the numerous gas-jets of the chandelier shed their lights impartially on ponderously framed canvases of the Bay of Naples and the Hudson in Autumn, on Carrara busts and bronze Indians on velvet pedestals.
“All this,” murmured Mr. Langhope, “is getting to be as rare as the giant sequoias. In another fifty years we shall have collectors fighting for that Bay of Naples.”
Bessy Westmore turned from him impatiently. When she felt deeply on any subject her father’s flippancy annoyed her.
“You can see, Maria,” she said, seating herself beside the other lady of the party, “why I couldn’t possibly live here.”
Mrs. Eustace Ansell, immediately after dinner, had bent her slender back above the velvet-covered writing-table, where an inkstand of Vienna ormolu offered its empty cup to her pen. Being habitually charged with a voluminous correspondence, she had foreseen this contingency and met it by despatching her maid for her own writing-case, which was now outspread before her in all its complex neatness; but at Bessy’s appeal she wiped her pen, and turned a sympathetic gaze on her companion.
Mrs. Ansell’s face drew all its charm from its adaptability. It was a different face to each speaker: now kindling with irony, now gently maternal, now charged with abstract meditation—and few paused to reflect that, in each case, it was merely the mirror held up to some one else’s view of life.
“It needs doing over,” she admitted, following the widow’s melancholy glance about the room. “But you are a spoilt child to complain. Think of having a house of your own to come to, instead of having to put up at the Hanaford hotel!”
Mrs. Westmore’s attention was arrested by the first part of the reply.
“Doing over? Why in the world should I do it over? No one could expect me to come here now—could they, Mr. Tredegar?” she exclaimed, transferring her appeal to the fourth member of the party.
Mr. Tredegar, the family lawyer, who had deemed it his duty to accompany the widow on her visit of inspection, was strolling up and down the room with short pompous steps, a cigar between his lips, and his arms behind him. He cocked his sparrow-like head, scanned the offending apartment, and terminated his survey by resting his eyes on Mrs. Westmore’s charming petulant face.
“It all depends,” he replied axiomatically, “how large an income you require.”
Mr. Tredegar uttered this remark with the air of one who pronounces on an important point in law: his lightest observation seemed a decision handed down from the bench to which he had never ascended. He restored the cigar to his lips, and sought approval in Mrs. Ansell’s expressive eye.
“Ah, that’s it, Bessy. You’ve that to remember,” the older lady murmured, as if struck by the profundity of the remark.
Mrs. Westmore made an impatient gesture. “We’ve always had money enough—Dick was perfectly satisfied.” Her voice trembled a little on her husband’s name. “And you don’t know what the place is like by daylight—and the people who come to call!”
“Of course you needn’t see any one now, dear,” Mrs. Ansell reminded her, “except the Halford Gaineses.”
“I am sure they’re bad enough. Juliana Gaines will say: ‘My dear, is that the way widows’ veils are worn in New York this autumn?’ and Halford will insist on our going to one of those awful family dinners, all Madeira and terrapin.”
“It’s too early for terrapin,” Mrs. Ansell smiled consolingly; but Bessy had reverted to her argument. “Besides, what difference would my coming here make? I shall never understand anything about business,” she declared.
Mr. Tredegar pondered, and once more removed his cigar. “The necessity has never arisen. But now that you find yourself in almost sole control of a large property–-“
Mr. Langhope laughed gently. “Apply yourself, Bessy. Bring your masterly intellect to bear on the industrial problem.”
Mrs. Ansell restored the innumerable implements to her writing-case, and laid her arm with a caressing gesture on Mrs. Westmore’s shoulder. “Don’t tease her. She’s tired, and she misses the baby.”
“I shall get a telegram tomorrow morning,” exclaimed the young mother, brightening.
“Of course you will. ‘Cicely has just eaten two boiled eggs and a bowl of porridge, and is bearing up wonderfully.’”
She drew Mrs. Westmore persuasively to her feet, but the widow refused to relinquish her hold on her grievance.
“You all think I’m extravagant and careless about money,” she broke out, addressing the room in general from the shelter of Mrs. Ansell’s embrace; “but I know one thing: If I had my way I should begin to economize by selling this horrible house, instead of leaving it shut up from one year’s end to another.”
Her father looked up: proposals of retrenchment always struck him as businesslike when they did not affect his own expenditure. “What do you think of that, eh, Tredegar?”
The eminent lawyer drew in his thin lips. “From the point of view of policy, I think unfavourably of it,” he pronounced.
Bessy’s face clouded, and Mrs. Ansell argued gently: “Really, it’s too late to look so far into the future. Remember, my dear, that we are due at the mills tomorrow at ten.”
The reminder that she must rise early had the effect of hastening Mrs. Westmore’s withdrawal, and the two ladies, after an exchange of goodnights, left the men to their cigars.
Mr. Langhope was the first to speak.
“Bessy’s as hopelessly vague about business as I am, Tredegar. Why the deuce Westmore left her everything outright—but he was only a heedless boy himself.”
“Yes. The way he allowed things to go, it’s a wonder there was anything to leave. This Truscomb must be an able fellow.”
“Devoted to Dick’s interests, I’ve always understood.”
“He makes the mills pay well, at any rate, and that’s not so easy nowadays. But on general principles it’s as well he should see that we mean to look into everything thoroughly. Of course Halford Gaines will never be more than a good figure-head, but Truscomb must be made to understand that Mrs. Westmore intends to interest herself personally in the business.”
“Oh, by all means—of course—” Mr. Langhope assented, his light smile stiffening into a yawn at the mere suggestion.
He rose with an effort, supporting himself on his stick. “I think I’ll turn in myself. There’s not a readable book in that God-forsaken library, and I believe Maria Ansell has gone off with my volume of Loti.”
The next morning, when Amherst presented himself at the Westmore door, he had decided to follow his chief’s instructions to the letter, and ask for Mr. Langhope only. The decision had cost him a struggle, for his heart was big with its purpose; but though he knew that he must soon place himself in open opposition to Truscomb, he recognized the prudence of deferring the declaration of war as long as possible.