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Then, more by intuition than actual sight, Blessington saw Eve's eyes turn from him to Loder, and with quick tact he saved the situation. "How d'you do, sir?" he responded, with a smile. "I congratulate you on looking so so uncommon well. I was just telling Mrs. Chilcote that I hold a commission for Lady Astrupp to-night. I'm a sort of scout at present reporting on the outposts."
The facts of the case were simple. Chilcote had left an incriminating telegram on the bureau in the morning-room at Grosvenor Square; by an unlucky chance Lillian Astrupp had been shown up into that room, where she had remained alone until the moment that Eve, either by request or by accident, had found her there. The facts resolved themselves into one question.
He laughed to reassure himself, but his voice shook pitiably. Loder, who had come to fight, stood silent and inert. "It was horrible beastly," Chilcote went on. "There was no fire and brimstone, but there was something worse.
He eyed his papers in Chilcote's listless hand. Chilcote smiled satirically. "Eve is very true to society," he said. "I couldn't dine at the Sabinets' if it was to make me premier. They have a butler who is an institution a sort of heirloom in the family. He is fat, and breathes audibly. Last time I lunched there he haunted me for a whole night." Blessington laughed gayly. "Mrs.
The invitation could scarcely have been verbal, as Chilcote, he knew, had lain very low in the five days of his return home. So he argued, as he stood with the book still open in his hands, the blue cross staring imperatively from the white paper.
Lillian Astrupp, with her unattested evidence and her ephemeral interest, gave him no real uneasiness; but Chilcote and Chilcote's possible summons were matters of graver consideration; and there were times when they loomed very dark and sinister: What if at the very moment of fulfilment ? But invariably he snapped the thread of the supposition and turned with fiercer ardor to his work of preparation.
He married his first cousin; and then, with the Chilcote prestige revived and the shipping money to back it, he entered on his ambition, which was to represent East Wark in the Conservative interest. It was a big fight, but he won as much by personal influence as by any other. He was an aristocrat, but he was a keen business-man as well. The combination carries weight with your lower classes.
"You are exempt from all penalties to-night," she said. Then she turned to greet the members of his party who had strolled across from the window in his wake. As she moved aside Bramfell looked at Loder. "Well, Chilcote, have you dipped into the future yet?" he asked, with a laugh. Loder echoed the laugh but said nothing.
A remembrance of the impression came to her now as she studied his face, upon which imperceptibly and yet relentlessly his vice was setting its mark in the dull restlessness of eye, the unhealthy sallowness of skin. Some shred of her thought, some suggestion of the comparison running through her mind, must have shown in her face, for Chilcote altered his position with a touch of uneasiness.
"My my time is not quite my own." Loder waved his hand. "Whose time is his own?" he said. Chilcote, encouraged by the remark, drew nearer to the fire. Until this moment he had refrained from looking directly at his host; now, however, he raised his eyes, and, despite his preparation, he recoiled unavoidably before the extraordinary resemblance.
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