may use my car all right," Mr. Bender contributed--"but what I want
to know is what the man's _after_."

"The man? what man?" his friend scarce paused to ask.

"The Prince then--if you allow he _is_ a man! Is he after my picture?"

Lord John vividly disclaimed authority. "If you'll wait, my dear fellow,
you'll see."

"Oh why should he 'wait'?" burst from their cautious companion--only
to be caught up, however, in the next breath, so swift her gracious
revolution. "Wait, wait indeed, Mr. Bender--I won't give you up for
any Prince!" With which she appealed again to Lord John. "He wants to
'congratulate'?"

"On Theign's decision, as I've told you--which I announced to
Mackintosh, by Theign's extraordinary order, under his Highness's nose,
and which his Highness, by the same token, took up like a shot."

Her face, as she bethought herself, was convulsed as by some quick
perception of what her informant must have done and what therefore the
Prince's interest rested on; all, however, to the effect, given their
actual company, of her at once dodging and covering that issue. "The
decision to remove the picture?"

Lord John also observed a discretion. "He wouldn't hear of such a
thing--says it must stay stock still. So there you are!"

This determined in Mr. Bender a not unnatural, in fact quite a
clamorous, series of questions. "But _where_ are we, and what has the
Prince to do with Lord Theign's decision when that's all _I'm_ here for?
What in thunder _is_ Lord Theign's decision--what was his 'extraordinary
order'?"

Lord John, too long detained and his hand now on the door, put off this
solicitor as he had already been put off. "Lady Sandgate, _you_ tell
him! I rush!"

Mr. Bender saw him vanish, but all to a greater bewilderment. "What the
h---- then (I beg your pardon!) is he talking about, and what
'sentiments' did he report round there that Lord Theign had been
expressing?"

His hostess faced it not otherwise than if she had resolved not to
recognise the subject of his curiosity--for fear of other recognitions.
"They put everything on _me_, my dear man--but I haven't the least
idea."

He looked at her askance. "Then why does the fellow say you have?"

Much at a loss for the moment, she yet found her way. "Because the
fellow's so agog that he doesn't know _what_ he says!" In addition
to which she was relieved by the reappearance of Gotch, who bore on
a salver the object he had been sent for and to which he