第99章 Chapter XLII. Try to Excuse Her.(1)

The weather had been unusually warm. Of all oppressive summers a hot summer in London is the hardest to endure. The little exercise that Sydney could take was, as Randal knew, deferred until the evening. On asking for her, he was surprised to hear that she had gone out.

"Is she walking?" he asked, "on a day such as this?"

No: she was too much overcome by the heat to be able to walk. The landlady's boy had been sent to fetch a cab, and he had heard Miss Westerfield tell the driver to go to Lincoln's Inn Fields.

The address at once reminded Randal of Mr. Sarrazin. On the chance of making a discovery, he went to the lawyer's office. It had struck him as being just possible that Sydney might have called there for the second time; and, on making inquiry, he found that his surmise was correct. Miss Westerfield had called, and had gone away again more than an hour since.

Having mentioned this circumstance, good Mr. Sarrazin rather abruptly changed the subject.

He began to talk of the weather, and, like everybody else, he complained of the heat. Receiving no encouragement so far, he selected politics as his next topic. Randal was unapproachably indifferent to the state of parties, and the urgent necessity for reform. Still bent, as it seemed, on preventing his visitor from taking a leading part in the conversation, Mr. Sarrazin tried the exercise of hospitality next. He opened his cigar-case, and entered eagerly into the merits of his cigars; he proposed a cool drink, and described the right method of making it as distinguished from the wrong. Randal was not thirsty, and was not inclined to smoke. Would the pertinacious lawyer give way at last? In appearance, at least, he submitted to defeat. "You want something of me, my friend," he said, with a patient smile. "What is it?"

"I want to know why Miss Westerfield called on you?"

Randal flattered himself that he had made a prevaricating reply simply impossible. Nothing of the sort! Mr. Sarrazin slipped through his fingers once more. The unwritten laws of gallantry afforded him a refuge now.

"The most inviolate respect," he solemnly declared, "is due to a lady's confidence--and, what is more, to a young lady's confidence--and, what is more yet, to a pretty young lady's confidence. The sex, my dear fellow! M ust I recall your attention to what is due to the sex?"

This little outbreak of the foreign side of his friend's character was no novelty to Randal. He remained as indifferent to the inviolate claims of the sex as if he had been an old man of ninety.

"Did Miss Westerfield say anything about me?" was his next question.

Slippery Mr. Sarrazin slid into another refuge: he entered a protest.

"Here is a change of persons and places!" he exclaimed. "Am I a witness of the court of justice--and are you the lawyer who examines me? My memory is defective, my learned friend. _Non mi ricordo._ I know nothing about it."

Randal changed his tone. "We have amused ourselves long enough," he said. "I have serious reasons, Sarrazin, for wishing to know what passed between Miss Westerfield and you--and I trust my old friend to relieve my anxiety."

The lawyer was accustomed to say of himself that he never did things by halves. His answer to Randal offered a proof of his accurate estimate of his own character "Your old friend will deserve your confidence in him," he answered. "You want to know why Miss Westerfield called here. Her object in view was to twist me round her finger--and I beg to inform you that she has completely succeeded. My dear Randal, this pretty creature's cunning is remarkable even for a woman. I am an old lawyer, skilled in the ways of the world--and a young girl has completely overreached me. She asked--oh, heavens, how innocently!--if Mrs. Norman was likely to make a long stay at her present place of residence."

Randal interrupted him. "You don't mean to tell me you have given her Catherine's address?"

"Buck's Hotel, Sydenham," Mr. Sarrazin answered. "She has got the address down in her nice little pocketbook."

"What amazing weakness!" Randal exclaimed.

Mr. Sarrazin cordially agreed with him. "Amazing weakness, as you say. Pretty Miss Sydney has extracted more things, besides the address. She knows that Mrs. Norman is here on business relating to new investments of her money. She knows besides that one of the trustees is keeping us waiting. She also made sensible remarks. She mentioned having heard Mrs. Norman say that the air of London never agreed with her; and she hoped that a comparatively healthy neighborhood had been chosen for Mrs.

Norman's place of residence. This, you see, was leading up to the discovery of the address. The spirit of mischief possessed me; I allowed Miss Westerfield to take a little peep at the truth.

'Mrs. Norman is not actually in London,' I said; 'she is only in the neighborhood.' For what followed on this, my experience of ladies ought to have prepared me. I am ashamed to say _this_ lady took me completely by surprise."

"What did she do?"

"Fell on her knees, poor dear--and said: 'Oh, Mr. Sarrazin, be kinder to me than you have ever been yet; tell me where Mrs.

Norman is!'--I put her back in her chair, and I took her handkerchief out of her pocket and I wiped her eyes."

"And then you told her the address?"

"I was near it, but I didn't do it yet. I asked what you had done in the matter. Alas, your kind heart has led you to promise more than you could perform. She had waited to hear from you if Mrs.

Norman consented to see her, and had waited in vain. Hard on her, wasn't it? I was sorry, but I was still obdurate. I only felt the symptoms which warned me that I was going to make a fool of myself, when she let me into her secret for the first time, and said plainly what she wanted with Mrs. Norman. Her tears and her entreaties I had resisted. The confession of her motives overpowered me. It is right," cried Mr. Sarrazin, suddenly warming into enthusiasm, "that these two women should meet.