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At the tone in which Lady Eynesford seemed to hurl his own name in his teeth, Coxon's rosy illusion vanished. He sat in gloomy silence, twisting his hat in his hand and waiting for Lady Eynesford to speak again. "You astonish me!" she said at last. "I made sure it was Eleanor." "Why is it astonishing?" he asked. "Surely Miss Derosne's attractions are sufficient to ?"
I only wondered if Ruth Anvoy talked over the idea of The Coxon Fund with Lady Maddock, and also somewhat why I didn't hear from Wimbledon. I had a reproachful note about something or other from Mrs. Saltram, but it contained no mention of Lady Coxon's niece, on whom her eyes had been much less fixed since the recent untoward events.
A slight shade of perplexity crossed Coxon's brow. The lady, if kind and reassuring, was also somewhat enigmatical. "I believe," he said, "Miss Scaife has guessed it." "Indeed! And is she pleased?" "I hope so." "So do I for your sake." "Her approbation would be a factor, would it?" "Really, Mr. Coxon, I suppose it would!" exclaimed Lady Eynesford in surprise.
Anvoy suddenly began to totter, and now he seems quite on his back. I'm afraid he's really in for some big reverse. Lady Coxon's worse again, awfully upset by the news from America, and she sends me word that she MUST have Ruth. How can I supply her with Ruth? I haven't got Ruth myself!" "Surely you haven't lost her?" I returned. "She's everything to her wretched father.
"The real history of the matter, I take it, is that the inspiration was originally Lady Coxon's own, that she infected him with it, and that the flattering option left her is simply his tribute to her beautiful, her aboriginal enthusiasm. She came to England forty years ago, a thin transcendental Bostonian, and even her odd happy frumpy Clockborough marriage never really materialised her.
Then Sir Robert, in his pretty way, must needs be led up to Daisy Medland and dance a quadrille with her, apologising politely to Dick Derosne, who had arranged to sit out the said quadrille with the same lady, and became a violent anti-Perryite on the spot. Alicia passed on Mr. Coxon's arm, and stopped for a moment to condole.
Anyhow it was my innings that time, and I don't ever wish to feel better pleased. The screw was a pound a week rise, and the duties just about the same as at Coxon's. "And now I come to the queer part of the business. I was in diggings out Hampstead way, 17 Potter's Terrace.
He made up his mind not to wait for the slow growth of disaffection in Coxon's mind, but to accelerate the separation of that gentleman from his colleagues.
Coxon's soaring mind regarded himself as left with Alicia, and he hoped that the necessary exercise of discretion would be forthcoming from Miss Scaife. Presently this little comedy revealed itself to Eleanor, and, after an amused glance at the retreating figure of her misguided friend, she would bury herself in Tomes on the British Colonies, and abandon Alicia to the visitor's wiles.
Gravener laughed, without saying no, when I suggested that the young lady might come in through a loophole; then suddenly, as if he suspected my turning a lantern on him, he declared quite dryly: "That's all rot one's moved by other springs!" A fortnight later, at Lady Coxon's own house, I understood well enough the springs one was moved by.
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