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Now Hilda knew perfectly well that the aunt of whom I spoke WAS Lady Tepping; so I felt sure that she had played this card of malice prepense, to pique Lady Meadowcroft. But Lady Meadowcroft herself seized the occasion with inartistic avidity. She had hardly addressed us as yet. At the sound of the magic passport, she pricked up her ears, and turned to me suddenly.
For the first time in my life, I had a glimmering idea that I distrusted Sebastian. Hilda Wade was right the man was cruel. But I had never observed his cruelty before because his devotion to science had blinded me to it. One day, about those times, I went round to call on my aunt, Lady Tepping.
Tenderness it welled: slow, swelling, full it throbbed. That's the chat. Ha, give! Take! Throb, a throb, a pulsing proud erect. Words? Music? No: it's what's behind. Bloom looped, unlooped, noded, disnoded. Bloom. Flood of warm jamjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music out, in desire, dark to lick flow invading. Tipping her tepping her tapping her topping her. Tup.
While Daphne Miss Tepping, I mean " His silence was ecstatic. I examined the photograph still more closely. It displayed a lady of twenty or thereabouts, with a weak face, small, vacant features, a feeble chin, a good-humoured, simple mouth, and a wealth of golden hair that seemed to strike a keynote. "In the theatrical profession?" I inquired at last, looking up. He hesitated.
A faint intonation on the word commanded drew unobtrusive attention to its social importance. "May I ask what was his name? my cousin was there, you see." An insipid smile. "We may have friends in common." "He was a certain Sir Malcolm Tepping," I blurted out, staring hard at my plate. "Tepping! I think I have heard Dick speak of him, Ivor."
"Why, Lady Tepping," I answered, in perfect innocence. "She has a fancy for these things, you know. She brought a lot of them home with her from Burma." As a matter of fact, as I have already explained, my poor dear aunt is an extremely commonplace old Army widow, whose husband happened to get knighted among the New Year's honours for some brush with the natives on the Shan frontier.
Indeed, if she had not been my cousin, I almost think I might once have been tempted to fall in love with her. When I reached Gloucester Terrace, on this particular afternoon, I found Hilda Wade there before me. She had lunched at my aunt's, in fact. It was her "day out" at St. Nathaniel's, and she had come round to spend it with Daphne Tepping.
"She has just run out into Westbourne Grove to get some gloves and a flower for the fete this evening," Hilda answered. Then she added, significantly, "Mr. Holsworthy has gone with her." "What? That boy's been here again?" "Yes, Lady Tepping. He called to see Daphne." My aunt turned to me with an aggrieved tone.
"There is such a thing as being TOO modest and unassuming," I answered. "It sometimes leads to unintentional cruelty." "No, do you think so?" he cried, his face falling all at once. "I should blame myself bitterly if that were so. Dr. Cumberledge, you are her cousin. DO you gather that I have acted in such a way as to to lead Miss Tepping to suppose I felt any affection for her?"
Why, even to a mere casual acquaintance like myself, she is so kind, so discerning!" "ARE you such a casual acquaintance?" I inquired, with a smile. He stopped short and hesitated. "Oh, quite casual," he replied, almost stammering. "Most casual, I assure you.... I have never ventured to do myself the honour of supposing that... that Miss Tepping could possibly care for me."
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