cried he, "let me take your place this evening, or else I 'll call on this old fool,--this Sir William Heathcote,--and give him the whole story of his bride. I 'm not sure if it's not the issue would give me most pleasure. I verily believe it would."

"It's a smart price to pay for a bit of malice too!" said Stocmar, musing. "I must say, there are some other ways in which the money would yield me as much pleasure."

"Is it a bargain, Stocmar? Do you say yes?" cried Paten, with heightened excitement.

"I don't see how I can agree to it," broke in the other. "If she distinctly tells me that she will not meet you--"

"Then she shall, by------!" cried Paten, confirming the determination by a terrible oath. "Look out now, Stocmar, for a scene," continued he, "and gratify yourself by the thought it is all your own doing. Had you accepted my proposal, I 'd have simply gone in your place, made myself known to her without scandal or exposure, and, in very few words, declared what my views were, and learned how far she'd concur with them.

You prefer an open rupture before the world. Well, you shall have it!"

Stocmar employed all his most skilful arguments to oppose this coarse.

He showed that, in adopting it, Paten sacrificed every prospect of self-interest and advantage, and, for the mere indulgence of a cruel outrage, that he compromised a position of positive benefit. The other, however, would not yield an inch. The extreme concession that Stocmar, after a long discussion, could obtain was, that the interview was not to exceed a few minutes, a quarter of an hour at furthest; that there was to be no _eclat_ or exposure, so far as he could pledge himself; and that he would exonerate Stocmar from all the reproach of being a willing party to the scheme. Even with these stipulations, Stocmar felt far from being reconciled to the plan, and declared that he could never forgive himself for his share in it.

"It is your confounded self-esteem is always uppermost in your thoughts," said Paten, insolently. "Just please to remember you are no foreground figure in this picture, if you be any figure at all. I feel full certain _she_ does not want you,--I 'll take my oath _I_ do not,--so leave us to settle our own affairs our own way, and don't distress yourself because you can't interfere with them."

With this rude speech, uttered in a tone insolent as the words, Paten arose and left the room. Scarcely had the door closed after him, however, than he reopened it, and said,--

"Only one word more, Stocmar. No double,--no treachery with me here. I 'll keep my pledge to the very letter; but if you attempt to trick or to overreach me, I 'll blow up the magazine."

Before Stocmar could reply, he was gone.

CHAPTER XXXV. LOO AND HER FATHER

Mrs. Morris, supposed to be confined to her room with a bad headache, was engaged in dressing for the masked ball, when a small twisted note was delivered to her by her maid.

"Is the bearer of this below stairs?" asked she, eagerly. "Show him in immediately."

The next moment, a short, burly figure, in a travelling-dress, entered, and, saluting her with a kiss on either cheek, unrolled his woollen comforter, and displayed the pleasant, jocund features of Mr. Nicholas Holmes.

"How well you are looking, papa!" said she. "I declare I think you grow younger!"

"It's the good conscience, I suppose," said he, laughing. "That and a good digestion help a man very far on his road through life. And how are you, Loo?"

"As you see," said she, laughingly. "With some of those family gifts you speak of, I rub on through the world tolerably well."

"You are not in mourning, I perceive. How is that?" asked he, looking at the amber-colored silk of her dress.

"Not to-night, papa, for I was just dressing for a masked ball at the Pergola, whither I was about to go on the sly, having given out that I was suffering from headache, and could not leave my room."

"Fretting over poor Penthony, eh?" cried he, laughing.

"Well, of course that might also be inferred. Not but I have already got over my violent grief. I am beginning to be what is technically called 'resigned.'"

"Which is, I believe, the stage of looking out for another!" laughed he again.

She gave a little faint sigh, and went on with her dressing. "And what news have you for me, papa? What is going on at home?"

"Nothing,--absolutely nothing, dear. You don't care for political news?"

[Illustration: 382]

"Not much. You know I had a surfeit of Downing Street once. By the way, papa, only think of my meeting George!"

"Ogden,--George Odgen?"

"Yes, it was a strange accident. He came to fetch away a young lad that happened to be stopping with us, and we met face to face--fortunately, alone--in the garden."

"Very awkward that!" muttered he.

"So it was; and so he evidently felt it. By the way, how old he has grown! George can't be more than--let me see--forty-six. Yes, he was just forty-six on the 8th of August. You 'd guess him fully ten years older."

"How did he behave? Did he recognize you and address you?"

"Yes; we talked a little,--not pleasantly, though. He evidently is not forgiving in his nature, and you know he had never much tact,--except official tact,--and so he was flurried and put out, and right glad to get away."

"But there was no _eclat_,--no scandal?"

"Of course not. The whole incident did not occupy ten minutes."

"They 've been at me again about my pension,--_his_ doing, I'm sure,"

muttered he,--"asking for a return of services, and such-like rubbish."

"Don't let them worry you, papa; they dare not push you to publicity.

It's like a divorce case, where one of the parties, being respectable, must submit to any terms imposed."

"Well, that's my own view of it, dear; and so I said, 'Consult the secret instructions to the Under-Secretary for Ireland for an account of services rendered by N. H.'"

"You 'll hear no more of it," said she, flippantly. "What of Ludlow?

Where is he?"

"He's here. Don't you know that?"

"Here! Do you mean in Florence?"

"Yes; he came with Stocmar. They are at the same hotel."

"I declare I half suspected it," said she, with a sort of bitter laugh.

"Oh, the cunning Mr. Stocmar, that must needs deceive me!"

"And you have seen him?"

"Yes; I settled about his taking Clara away with him. I want to get rid of her,--I mean altogether,--and Stocmar is exactly the person to manage these little incidents of the white slave-market But," added she, with some irritation, "that was no reason why you should dupe _me_, my good Mr. Stocmar! particularly at the moment when I had poured all my sorrows into your confiding breast!"

"He's a very deep fellow, they tell me."

"No, papa, he is not He has that amount of calculation--that putting this, that, and t' other together, and seeing what they mean--which all Jews have; but he makes the same blunder that men of small craft are always making. He is eternally on the search after motives, just as if fifteen out of every twenty things in this life are not done without any motive at all!"