The Grand Sophy

Chapter 11

THE REST of the day passed uneventfully, Sophy driving Cecilia in Hyde Park in her phaeton, setting her down to enjoy a stroll with Mr. Fawnhope, encountered by previous arrangement by the Riding House, and taking up In her stead Sir Vincent Talgarth, who only deserted her when he perceived the Marquesa de Villacanas’s barouche drawn up beside the rails that separated Rotten Row from the carriage way. The Marquesa, who was attracting no little attention by the number and height of the curled ostrich plumes in her hat, welcomed him with her lazy smile, and told Sophy that she found the shops in London wholly inferior to those in Paris. Nothing she had seen in Bond Street that day had tempted her to undo her purse string. But Sir Vincent knew of a modiste in Bruton Street who might be trusted to recognize at a glance the style and quality of such a customer, and he offered to escort the Marquesa to her establishment.

Sophy knit her brows a little over this, but before she had had time to think much on the subject her attention was claimed by Lord Bromford. Civility obliged her to invite him to take a turn about the Park in her phaeton. He got up beside her, and after telling her how much enjoyment he had derived from the Ombersley ball, made her a formal offer of marriage. Sophy declined this, without hesitation and without embarrassment. Lord Bromford, disconcerted only for a minute, said that his ardor had made him too precipitate, but that he did not despair of a happy issue. “When your parent returns to these shores,” he pronounced, “I shall formally apply to him for leave to address you. You are very right to insist upon so much propriety, and I must beg pardon for having contravened the laws of etiquette. Only the strong passion under which I labor — and I must tell you that not the most forceful representations of my mother, a Being to whom I, in filial duty, tender the most profound respect, have had the power to alter my decision — only, as I have said, this passion could have induced me to forget — ”

“I think,” said Sophy, “that you should take your seat in the House of Lords. Have you done so?”

“It is strange,” responded his lordship, swelling slightly, “that you should ask me that question, for I am upon the point of doing so. I shall be presented by a sponsor no less distinguished for his high lineage than for his forensic attainments,’ and I trust — ”

“I have no doubt at all that you are destined to become a great man,” said Sophy. “No matter how lengthy, or how involved your periods, you never lose yourself in them! How charming the foliage is on those beech trees! Do you know any tree to rival the beech? I am sure I do not!”

“Certainly a graceful tree,” conceded Lord Bromford, patronizing the beech. “Hardly, however, to rank in majesty with the mahogany, which grows in the West Indies, or in usefulness with the lancewood. I wonder, Miss Stanton-Lacy, how many persons are aware that the lancewood supplies the shafts for their carriages?”

“In the southern provinces of Spain,” countered Sophy, “the cork oak grows in great profusion.”

“Another interesting tree to be found in Jamaica,” said his lordship, “is the ballata. We have also the rosewood, the ebony, the lignum vitae — ”

“The northern parts of Spain,” said Sophy defiantly, “are more remarkable for the many variety of shrubs which grow there, including what we call the jarales, and the ladanum bush, and — and — Oh, there is Lord Francis! I shall have to put you down, Lord Bromford!”

He was reluctant, but since Lord Francis was waving to Sophy, and showed every desire to speak to her, he was unable to demur. When the phaeton drew up, he climbed ponderously down from it, and Lord Francis leaped equally nimbly up into it, saying, “Sophy, that was a capital ball last night! What a lovely creature your cousin is, to be sure!”

Sophy set her horses in motion again. “Francis, does the cork oak grow in the southern provinces in Spain?”

“Lord, Sophy, how should I know? You was in Cadiz! Can’t you recall? Who cares for cork oaks, in any event?”

“I hope,” said Sophy warmly, “that when you have done with being the worst flirt in Europe, Francis, you will win a very beautiful wife, for you deserve one! Do you know anything about the ballata?”

“Never heard of it in my life! What is it? a new dance?”

“No, it’s a tree, and it grows in Jamaica. I hope she will be as good natured as she is beautiful.”

“Trust me for that! But, y’know, Sophy, it ain’t like you to be boring on and on about trees! What’s come over you?”

“Lord Bromford,” sighed Sophy.

“What, that prosy fellow you had up beside you just now? He told Sally Jersey last night how valuable guinea grass was for horses and cattle; heard him! Never saw poor Silence so silenced!”

“I wish she had given him one of her setdowns. I must put you down when we reach the Riding House, for Cecilia will be waiting for me.”

Cecilia and her swain were found at the appointed spot. Lord Francis sprang down from the phaeton, and it was he who handed Cecilia up into it, Mr. Fawnhope having become rapt in contemplation of a clump of daffodils, which caused him to throw out a hand, murmuring, “Daffodils that come before the swallow dares!”

Cecilia’s spirits did not appear to have derived much benefit from her meeting with her lover. His plans for their future maintenance seemed to be a trifle vague, but he had an epic poem in his head, which might win him fame in a night, he thought. While this was in preparation, he would not object, he said, to accepting a post as a librarian. But as Cecilia was unable to imagine that her father or her brother would feel any marked degree of satisfaction in giving her in marriage to a librarian, this very handsome concession on Mr. Fawnhope’s part merely added to her despondency. She had gone so far as to suggest to him that he should embrace the profession of politics, but he had only said, “How sordid!” which did not augur well for this excellent scheme. When he had added that since the death of Mr. Fox, ten years earlier, there was no leader a man of sensibility could attach himself to, this remark had only served to show her how very improbable it was that his politics would find more favor with her family than his poetic aspirations.

Sophy, gathering the gist of all this from Cecilia’s somewhat elliptical remarks, took up a buoyant attitude, saying, “Oh, well! We must find a great man who is willing to become his patron!” which gave Cecilia a poor notion of her understanding.

Sophy was able to restore to Hubert the scrap of paper that had fallen from his pocket before going down to dinner that evening. Until this moment she had not thought much about it, but his manner of receiving it from her was so strange that it set up in her head various speculations which he was far from desiring. He almost snatched it from her hand, exclaiming, “Where did you find this?” and when she explained, in the most temperate manner, that she thought it must have fallen out of the pocket of the coat she had mended for him, he said, “Yes, it is mine, but I did not know I had put it there! I cannot tell you what it signifies, but pray do not mention it to anyone!”

She could only assure him that she had no intention of doing so, but he appeared to be so much discomposed that some inevitable reflections were set up in her brain. These did not come to fruition until she saw him upon his return from his visit to his friend, Mr. Harpenden, when his demeanor was so much that of a man who had received some stunning blow that she seized the earliest opportunity that offered of asking him if anything were amiss. Mr. Rivenhall, who had left London twenty-four hours earlier for Thorpe Grange, the estate in Leicestershire which he had inherited from his great-uncle, had not yet returned to London; but Hubert made it plain to his cousin that even had his elder brother been in London, not the direst necessity would have induced him to apply to him.

“He has not minced matters! He told me in round terms that he would not — Oh well! No matter for that!”

“I daresay,” said Sophy, in her calm way, “that Charles might very likely say more than he meant. I wish you will tell me what has gone awry, Hubert! My conjecture is that you have lost perhaps a large sum at Newmarket?”

“If that were all!” he exclaimed unguardedly.

“Well, if it is not all, I wish you will tell me the full sum of it, Hubert!” she said, with one of her friendly smiled. “I assure you, you are quite safe in my hands, for Sir Horace brought me up to think there was nothing more odious than to be the kind of person who babbled secrets abroad. But I know that you are in trouble of some sort, and I do think I ought, if you will tell me nothing, to drop a hint in your brother’s ear, for ten to one you will make bad much worse if you go on in this way, with no one to advise you!”

He turned pale. “Sophy, you would not — ”

Her eyes twinkled. “No, of course I would not!” she admitted. “You are so very loath to tell me anything that I am quite forced to ask you. Is it anything to do with a woman — what Sir Horace would call a bit of muslin, perhaps?”

“Sophy! Upon my word! No! Nothing of the sort!”

“Money, then?”

He did not answer, and after a moment she patted invitingly the sofa on which she sat, and said, “Do, pray, come and sit down! I don’t suppose it is by half so bad as you fear.”

He gave a short laugh, but after a little more persuasion sat down beside her, and sank his head in between his clenched fists. “I shall come about. If the worst comes to the worst, a man may always enlist!”

“True,” she agreed. “But I know something of the army, and I do not think that life in the ranks would suit you at all. Besides, it would very much distress my aunt, you know!”

It was not to be supposed that a young gentleman of Hubert’s order would readily confide his difficulties into the ears of a female, and that female not quite as old as he was himself; but after a good deal of coaxing Sophy managed to extract his story from him. It was not a very coherent tale, and she was obliged to prompt him several times during its recital, but in the end she gathered that he had fallen into the clutches of a moneylender.

There had been some trouble over debts contracted during the previous year at Oxford, the full sum of which he had not dared to disclose to his brother, hoping, in the immemorial way of youth, to be able to discharge them himself. He had knowing friends who knew all the gaming houses in London; quite a brief run of luck at French Hazard, or roulette, would have set all to rights; but when, during the Christmas vacation, he had sought this method of recuperating his fortunes, only the most unprecedented bad luck had attended his efforts.

He still shuddered whenever he recalled those ruinous, and, indeed, terrifying evenings, a circumstance which led his sapient cousin to infer that gaming held little attraction for him. Faced with large debts of honor, already in hot water with his formidable brother for far smaller debts, what could he do but jump into the river, or go to a moneylender? And even so, he assured Sophy, he would never have gone near a curst moneylender had he not felt certain of being able to pay the shark off within six months.

“You mean, when you come of age next month?” Sophy asked.

“Well, no,” he admitted, coloring. “Though I fancy that was what old Goldhanger thought, when he agreed to lend me the money. I never told him so, mind! All I said was that I was certain of coming into possession of a large sum — and I was, Sophy! I did not think it could possibly fail! Bob Gilmorton — he is a particular friend of mine — knows the owner well, and he swore to me the horse could not lose!”

Sophy, who had an excellent memory, instantly recognized the name of Goldhanger as being the one she had read on the scrap of paper discovered in her bedroom, but she made no comment on this, merely inquiring whether the perfidious horse had lost his race.

“Unplaced!” said Hubert, with a groan.

She nodded wisely. “Sir Horace says that if ever you trust to a horse to set your fortune to rights he always is unplaced,” she observed. “He says also that if you game when your pockets are to let you will lose. It is only when you are very well breeched that you may expect to win. Sir Horace is always right!”

Declining to argue this point, Hubert spoke for several embittered minutes on the running of his horse, casting such grave aspersions upon the owner, the trainer, and the jockey as must have rendered him liable to prosecution for slander had they been uttered to anyone less discreet than his cousin. She let him run on, listening sympathetically, and only when he had talked himself to a standstill did she bring him back to what she thought a far more important point.

“Hubert, you are not of age,” she said. “And I know that it is quite illegal to lend money to minors, because when young Mr. — well, never mind the name, but we knew him well — when a young man of my acquaintance got into just such a fix, he came to Sir Horace for advice, and that is what Sir Horace said. I believe there are excessively severe penalties for doing such a thing.”

“Well, I know that,” Hubert answered. “Most of ’em won’t do it, but — well, the thing is that a friend of mine knew this fellow, Goldhanger, and gave me his direction, and — and told me what I should say, and the sort of interest I should have to pay — not that that seemed to matter then, because I thought — ”

“Is it very heavy?” Sophy interrupted.

He nodded. “Yes, because, though I lied about my age he knew, of course, that I’m not yet twenty-one, and — and he had me pretty well at his mercy. And I thought I should have been able to have paid it all off after that race.”

“How much did you borrow, Hubert?”

“Five hundred,” he muttered.

“Good gracious, did you lose all that at cards?” she exclaimed.

“No, but I wanted a hundred to lay on that curst screw, you see,” he explained. “It was of no use only to borrow enough to pay my debts, because how was I to pay back Goldhanger?”

Sophy could not help laughing at this ingenious method of finance, but as Hubert looked rather hurt she begged pardon, and said, “It is evident to me that your Mr. Goldhanger is an infamous rascal!”

“Yes,” Hubert said, looking a little haggard. “He’s an old devil, and I was a fool even to go near him. I didn’t know as much about him then as I do now, of course, but still, as soon as I saw him — But it’s too late now to be repining over that!”

“Yes, much too late. Besides, there is no need to be in despair! I am certain that you have nothing to fear, because he must know he cannot recover his money from a minor, and would never dare to sue you for it.”

“Dash it, Sophy, I must pay the fellow back what I owe him! Besides, there’s worse. He insisted on my giving him a pledge, and — and I did!”

He sounded so guilty that several hair-raising possibilities flashed through Sophy’s mind. “Hubert, you did not pledge a family heirloom, or — or anything of that nature, did you?”

“Good God, no! I’m not as bad as that!” he cried indignantly. “It was mine, and I shouldn’t call it an heirloom, precisely, though if ever it was discovered that I had lost it I daresay there would be the deuce of a kickup, and I should be abused as though I were a pickpocket! Grandfather Stanton-Lacy left it to me — stupid sort of thing, think, because men don’t wear ’em nowadays. He did, of course, and my mother says the sight of it brings him back to her as nothing else could, because she never saw him without it on his hand — so you may judge what would happen if she knew I had pledged it! It’s a ring, you know, a great, square emerald, with diamonds all round it. Fancy wearing such a thing as that! Why, one would look like Romeo Coates, or some wealthy Cit trying to lionize! Mama always kept it, and I never knew it had been left to me until I went to a masquerade last year, and she gave it to me to wear and told me it was mine. And when Goldhanger demanded I should give him a pledge, I — I couldn’t think of anything else, and — well, I knew where Mama kept it, and I took it! And don’t tell me I stole it from her, because it was no such thing, and she only kept it because I had no use for it!”

“No, no, of course I know you would not steal anything!” Sophy said hastily.

He studied his knuckles with rapt interest. “No. Mind, I don’t say I ought to have taken it from my mother’s case, but — it was my own!”

“Well, naturally you ought not!” said Sophy. “I daresay she would be vexed with you, so we must recover it at once.”

“I wish I might, but there’s no chance of that now! I don’t know what to do! When that horse failed, I was ready to blow my brains out! I shan’t do so, because I don’t suppose it would mend matters, besides creating a dashed scandal.”

“What a good thing you told me the whole! I know exactly what you should do. Make a clean breast of the business to your brother! He will very likely give you a tremendous scold but you may depend upon his helping you out of this fix.”

“You don’t know him! Scold, indeed! Depend upon it, he would make me come down from Oxford, and thrust me into the army, or some such thing! I’ll try everything before I apply to him!”

“Very well, I will lend you five hundred pounds,” said Sophy.

He flushed. “You’re a great gun, Sophy — no, I don’t mean that — a capital girl! I’m devilish grateful, but of course I could not borrow money from you! No, no, pray don’t say any more! It is out of the question! Besides, you don’t understand! The old bloodsucker made me sign a bond to pay him fifteen per cent interest a month!”

“Good God, you never agreed to such an iniquitous thing?”

“What else could I do? I had to have the money to pay my gaming debts, and I knew it was useless to go to Howard and Gibbs, or any of those fellows, for they would have shown me the door.”

“Hubert, I am persuaded there is nothing he can do to extort one penny of interest from you! Why, in law he could not even recover the principal! Only let me lend you five hundred pounds, and take it to him, and insist upon his restoring to you the bond you signed, and your ring! Tell him that if he does not choose to accept the principal he may do his worst!”

“And have him inform at Oxford against me! I tell you, Sophy, he is an out-and-out villain! He would do me all the harm that lay in his power! He is not a regular moneylender: in fact, I’m pretty certain he’s what they call a lock, or a fence, a receiver, you know. What’s more, he would refuse to give me back the ring, and even if I brought him to book he would have sold it, I expect.”

Nothing that Sophy could urge had the power to move him. He was plainly in considerable dread of Mr. Goldhanger, and since she found this incomprehensible she could only suppose that some darker threat than had been disclosed to her was being held over his head. She made no attempt to discover what this might be, for she felt reasonably certain that it would not have impressed her. Instead, she asked him what he intended to do to extricate himself from his difficulties, if he would neither apply to his brother nor accept a loan from her. The answer was not very definite, Hubert being young enough still to cherish youth’s ineradicable belief in timely miracles. He said several times that he had a month left to him before he need do anything desperate, and while agreeing reluctantly that he might in the end be forced to go to his brother, evidently felt that something would happen to make this unnecessary. With an attempt at lightheartedness, he begged Sophy not to trouble her head over it, and as she perceived that it would be useless to continue arguing with him she said no more.

But when he had left her she sat for some time with her chin in her hand, pondering the matter. Her first impulse, which was to place the whole affair in the hands of Sir Horace’s lawyer, she regretfully discarded. She was well enough acquainted with Mr. Meriden to know that he would most strenuously resist her determination to pay five hundred pounds into a moneylender’s hands. Any advice he might be expected to give her could only lead to the disclosure of Hubert’s folly, which was naturally unthinkable. Her mind flitted through the ranks of her friends, but they too had to be discarded for the same reason. But since she was not one to abandon any project she had once decided on, she did not for as much as an instant entertain the idea of leaving her young cousin to settle his difficulties for himself. There seemed to be no other course open to her but to confront the villainous Mr. Goldhanger herself. This decision was not reached without careful consideration, for although she was not in the least afraid of Mr. Goldhanger, she was perfectly well aware that young ladies did not visit usurers and that such conduct would be thought outrageous by any person of breeding. However, since she could perceive no reason why anyone, except, perhaps, Hubert, should ever know anything at all about it, she came to the conclusion that to hang back from missish scruples would be stupid and spiritless — not the sort of behavior to be expected of Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy’s daughter.

Having made up her mind to intervene in Hubert’s affairs, it was characteristic of her that she wasted no time in further heartburnings. It was also characteristic of her that she made no attempt to persuade herself that she might with propriety draw upon Sir Horace’s funds to defray Hubert’s debt. In her view, which he would undoubtedly have shared, it was one thing to spend five hundred pounds on a ball to launch herself into London society and quite another to force him into an act of generosity toward a nephew of whose very existence he was in all probability oblivious. Instead, she unlocked her jewel case, and, after turning over its contents, abstracted from it the diamond earrings Sir Horace had bought for her at Rundell and Bridge only a year earlier. They were singularly fine stones, and it cost her a slight pang to part with them, but the rest of her more valuable jewelry had been left to her by her mother, and although she had not the smallest recollection of this lady, her scruples forbade her to part with her trinkets.

Upon the following day, she contrived to excuse herself from accompanying Lady Ombersley and Cecilia to a silk warehouse in the Strand, and instead sallied forth quite unaccompanied to those noted jewelers, Rundell and Bridge. The shop was empty of customers when she arrived, but the sight of a young lady of commanding height and presence, and dressed, moreover, in the first style of elegance, brought the head salesman hurrying forward, all eagerness to oblige. He was an excellent man of business, who prided himself on never forgetting the face of a valued customer.

He recognized Miss Stanton-Lacy at a glance, set a chair for her with his own august hands, and begged to be told what he might have the honor of showing her. When he discovered the true nature of her business he looked thunderstruck, but swiftly concealed his amazement, and, by a flicker of the eyelids, conveyed to an intelligent underling an order to summon on to the scene Mr. Bridge himself. Mr. Bridge, gliding into the shop and bowing politely to the daughter of a patron who had bought many expensive trinkets of him (though mostly for quite a different class of female), begged Sophy to go with him into his private office at the back of the showroom. Whatever he may have thought of her wish to dispose of earrings carefully chosen by herself only a year before he kept to himself.

A civil inquiry for Sir Horace having elicited the information that he was at present in Brazil, Mr. Bridge, putting two and two together, instantly resolved to buy the earrings back at a handsome figure, instead of resorting, as had been his first intention, to the time-honored custom of explaining to his client just why the price of diamonds had fallen so low. He had no intention of selling the earrings again; he would put them by until the return of Sir Horace from Brazil. Sir Horace, he shrewdly suspected, would repurchase them; and his gratification at being able to do so reasonably would no doubt find expression, in the future, in buying a great many more expensive trifles from the jewelers who had behaved in so gentlemanly a way toward his only daughter. The transaction, therefore, between Miss Stanton-Lacy and Mr. Bridge was conducted on the most genteel lines possible, each party being perfectly satisfied with the bargain. Mr. Bridge, the soul of discretion, kept Miss Stanton-Lacy in his private office until two other customers had left the shop. He fancied that Sir Horace might not wish it to be known that his daughter had been reduced to selling her jewelry. Without a blink he agreed to pay Sophy five hundred pounds in bills; without a blink he counted them out on the table before her; and without the least diminution in respect did he presently bow her out of the shop.

The bills stuffed into her muff, Sophy next hailed a hackney and desired the coachman to drive her to Bear Alley. The vehicle she selected was by no means the first or the smartest which lumbered past her, but it was driven by the most prepossessing jarvey. He was a burly, middle-aged man, with a rubicund and jovial countenance, in whom Sophy felt that she might repose a certain degree of confidence, this belief being strengthened by the manner in which he received her order. After eyeing her shrewdly and stroking his chin with one mittened hand, he gave it as his opinion that she had mistaken the direction, Bear Alley not being, to his way of thinking, the sort of locality to which a lady of her quality would wish to be taken.

“No, is it a back slum?” asked Sophy.

“It ain’t the place for a young lady,” repeated the jarvey, declining to commit himself on this point. He added that he had daughters of his own, begging her pardon.

“Well, back slum or not, that is where I wish to go,” said Sophy. “I have business with a Mr. Goldhanger there, who, I daresay, is a great rogue; and you look to me just the sort of man I may trust not to drive off and leave me there.”

She then got up into the hackney; the jarvey shut the door upon her, climbed back on to the box, and, after expressing to the ambient air his desire to be floored if ever he should be so betwattled again, besought his horse to get up.

Bear Alley, which led eastward from the Fleet Market, was a narrow and malodorous lane, where filth of every description lay moldering between the uneven cobbles. The shadow of the great prison seemed to brood over the whole district, and even the people who trod the streets or lounged on doorsteps, had a depressed look not entirely attributable to their circumstances. The coachman inquired of a man in a greasy muffler whether he knew Mr. Goldhanger’s abode, and was directed to a house halfway up the alley, his informant hesitating palpably before answering and seeming disinclined to enter into any sort of conversation.

A dingy hackney, once a gentleman’s coach, attracted little notice, but when it drew up and a tall, well-dressed young woman alighted, holding up her flounced skirts to avoid soiling them against a pile of garbage, several loafers and two small, ragged boys drew near to stare at her. Various comments were made, but these were happily phrased in such cant terms as were quite incomprehensible to Sophy. She had been stared out of countenance in too many Spanish and Portuguese villages to be in any way discomposed by the attention she was attracting, and after running a critical eye over her audience, beckoned to one of the small boys, and said with a smile, “Tell me, does a man called Goldhanger live here?”

The urchin gaped at her, but when she held out a shilling to him, caught his breath sharply, and, stretching out a claw of a hand, uttered; “Fust floor!” He then grabbed the coin and took to his heels before any of his seniors could relieve him of it.

The glimpse of largesse made the crowd converge on Sophy, but the jarvey climbed down from the box, his whip in his hand, and genially invited anyone who had a fancy for a little of the home-brewed to come on. No one accepted the invitation, and Sophy said, “Thank you, but pray do not start a brawl! I wish you will wait for me here, if you please.”

“If I was you, missie,” said the jarvey earnestly, “I’d keep out of a ken like this here, that’s what I’d do! You don’t know what might happen to you!”

“Well, if anything happens to me,” responded Sophy cheerfully, “I shall give a loud scream, and you may come in and rescue me. I shall not, I think, keep you waiting for very long.”

She then picked her way through the kennel and entered the house that had been pointed out to her. The door stood open and a flight of uncarpeted stairs lay at the end of a short passage. She went up them and found herself on a small landing. Two doors gave on to this, so she knocked on them both in an imperative way. There was a pause, and she had an unpleasant feeling that she was being watched. She looked around, but there was no one in sight, and it was only when she turned her head again that she saw that an unmistakable eye was regarding her though a small hole in one of the panels of the door at the back of the house. It disappeared instantly; there was the sound of a key turning in a lock, and the door was slowly opened to reveal a thin, swarthy individual, with long greasy curls and Semitic nose, and an ingratiating leer. He was dressed in a suit of rusty black, and nothing about him suggested sufficient affluence to lend as much as five hundred pence to anyone. His hooded eyes rapidly took in every detail of Sophy’s appearance, from the curled feathers in her high-crowned hat to the neat kid boots upon her feet.

“Good morning!” said Sophy. “Are you Mr. Goldhanger?”

He stood, a little bent, before her, wiping his hands together. “And what would you be wanting with Mr. Goldhanger, my lady?” he asked.

“I have business with him,” replied Sophy. “So if you are he please do not keep me standing in this dirty passage any longer! I cannot conceive why you do not at least sweep the floors!”

Mr. Goldhanger was considerably taken aback, a thing that had not happened to him for a very long time. He was accustomed to receiving all sorts and conditions of visitors, from furtive persons who stole into the house under cover of darkness and spilled strange wares upon the desk under the light of the one oil lamp, to haggard-eyed young men of fashion seeking relief from their immediate obligations, but never before had he opened his door to a self-possessed young lady who took him to task for not sweeping the floors.

“I wish you will stop staring at me in that foolish way!” said Sophy. “You have already peered at me through that hole in the door, and you must by now have convinced yourself that I am not a law officer in disguise.”

Mr. Goldhanger protested. The insinuation that he would not welcome a visit from a law officer seemed to wound him. However, he stood back to allow Sophy to enter the room and invited her to take a chair on one side of the large desk which occupied the center of the floor.

“Yes, but I shall be obliged to you if you will first dust it,” she said.

Mr. Goldhanger performed this office with one of his long coattails. He heard the key grate behind him, and turned sharply to see his visitor removing it from the lock.

“You won’t object to my locking the door, I daresay,” said Sophy. “I don’t in the least desire to be interrupted by any of your acquaintances, you see. And since I should much dislike to be spied on, you will permit me to stuff my handkerchief into that Judas of yours.” She removed one hand from her large swansdown muff as she spoke and poked a corner of her handkerchief into the hole.

Mr. Goldhanger had the oddest feeling that the world had begun to revolve in reverse. For years he had taken care never to get into any situation he was unable to command, and his visitors were more in the habit of pleading with him than of locking the door and ordering him to dust the furniture. He could see no particular harm in allowing Sophy to retain the key, for although she was a large young woman he had no doubt of being able to wrest it from her should such a need arise. His instinct made him prefer, whenever possible, to maintain a manner of the utmost urbanity, so he now smiled and bowed, and said that my lady was welcome to do what she pleased in his humble abode. He then betook himself to the chair on the other side of the desk and asked what he might have the honor of doing for her.

“I have come on a very simple matter,” responded Sophy. “It is merely to recover from you Mr. Hubert Rivenhall’s bond and the emerald ring given you as a pledge.”

“That,” said Mr. Goldhanger, smiling more ingratiatingly than ever, “is indeed a simple matter. I shall be delighted to oblige you, my lady. I need not ask whether you have brought with you the funds, for I am sure such a businesslike lady — ”

“Now, that is excellent!” interrupted Sophy cordially. “I find that so many persons imagine that if one is a female one has no head for business, and that, of course, leads to a sad waste of time. I must tell you at once that when you lent five hundred pounds to Mr. Rivenhall you lent money to a minor. I expect I need not explain to you what that means.”

She smiled in the most friendly way as she spoke these words, and Mr. Goldhanger smiled back at her, and said softly, “What a well-informed young lady, to be sure! If I sued Mr. Rivenhall for my money I could not recover it. But I do not think Mr. Rivenhall would like me to sue him for it.”

“Of course he would not,” Sophy agreed. “Moreover, although it was extremely wrong of you to have lent him any money, it seems unjust that you should not at least recover the principal.”

“Most unjust,” said Mr. Goldhanger. “There is also a little matter of the interest, my lady.”

Sophy shook her head. “No, I shan’t pay you a penny in interest, which may perhaps teach you a lesson to be more careful in future. I have with me five hundred pounds in bills, and when you have handed me the bond and the ring I will give them to you.”

Mr. Goldhanger could not help laughing a little at this, for although he had not very much sense of humor he could not but be tickled at the thought that he would forego his interest at the command of a young lady. “I think I prefer to keep the bond and the ring,” he said.

“I expect you would prefer it,” said Sophy.

“You should consider, my lady, that I could do Mr. Rivenhall a great deal of harm,” Mr. Goldhanger pointed out. “He is up at Oxford, isn’t he? Yes, I don’t think they would be pleased there if they knew of his little transaction with me. Or — ”

“They would not be at all pleased,” said Sophy. “It would be a trifle awkward for you, though, would it not? But perhaps you could persuade them that you had no notion that Mr. Rivenhall was under age.”

“Such a clever young lady!” smiled Mr. Goldhanger.

“No, but I have a great deal of common sense, which tells me that if you refuse to give up the bond and the ring the best course for me to pursue would be to drive at once to Bow Street and lay the whole matter before the magistrate there.”

The smile faded; Mr. Goldhanger watched her through narrowed eyelids. “I don’t think you would be wise to do that,” he said.

“Don’t you? Well, I think it is the wisest thing I could possibly do, and I have a strong feeling that they would like to have news of you in Bow Street.”

Mr. Goldhanger shared this feeling. But he did not believe that Sophy meant what she said, his clients having the most providential dislike of publicity. He said, “I think my Lord Ombersley would prefer to pay me my money.”

“I daresay he would, and that is why I have told him nothing about it, for I think it nonsensical to be blackmailed by such a creature as you all for the want of a little courage.”

This unprecedented point of view began to engender in Mr. Goldhanger a dislike for his guest. Women, he knew, were unpredictable. He leaned forward in his chair, and tried to explain to her some of the more disagreeable consequences that would befall Mr. Rivenhall if he repudiated any part of his debt. He spoke well, and it was a sinister little speech that seldom failed to impress its hearers. It failed today.

“All this,” said Sophy, cutting him short, “is nonsense, and you must know that as well as I do. All that would happen to Mr. Rivenhall would be that he would get a great scold and be in disgrace with his father for a while, and as for being sent down from Oxford, no such thing! They will never know anything about it there, because it is my belief that you do worse things than lending money at extortionate rates to young men, and once I have been to Bow Street, ten to one they will contrive to put you in prison on quite another charge! What is more, the instant it becomes known to the law officers that you lent money to a minor you will be unable to recover a penny of it. So pray do not talk any more to me in that absurd way! I am not in the least afraid of you or of anything you can do.”

“You are very courageous,” said Mr. Goldhanger gently. “Also you have much common sense, as you told me. But I too have common sense, my lady, and I do not think that you came to see me with the consent, or even the knowledge, of your parents, or your maid, or even of Mr. Hubert Rivenhall. Perhaps you would indeed inform against me at Bow Street. I do not know, but perhaps you may never be grant the opportunity. Now, I should not like to be harsh to such a beautiful young lady, so shall we agree to a little compromise? You will give me the five hundred pounds you have brought with you, and those pretty pearls you wear in your ears, and I will hand you Mr. Rivenhall’s bond, and we shall both of us be satisfied.”

Sophy laughed. “I imagine you would be more than satisfied!” she said. “I will give you five hundred pounds for the bond and the ring, and nothing more.”

“But perhaps you have loving parents who would be willing to give me much, much more to have you restored to them, alive, my lady, and unhurt?”

He rose from his chair as he spoke, but his objectionable guest, instead of displaying decent alarm, merely withdrew her right hand from her muff. In it she held a small but eminently serviceable pistol. “Pray sit down again, Mr. Goldhanger!” she said.

Mr. Goldhanger sat down. He believed that no female could stand loud reports, much less pull triggers, but he had seen quite enough of Sophy to be reluctant to put this belief to the test. He begged her not to be foolish.

“You must not be afraid that I don’t know how to handle guns,” Sophy told him reassuringly. “Indeed, I am a very fair shot. Perhaps I ought to tell you that I have lived for some time in Spain, where of course they have a great many unpleasant people, such as bandits. My father taught me to shoot. I am not such a fine shot as he is, but at this range I would engage to put a bullet through any part of you I chose.”

“You are trying to frighten me,” said Mr. Goldhanger querulously, “but I am not frightened of guns in women’s hands, and I know very well it is unloaded!”

“Well, if you move out of that chair you will discover that it is loaded,” said Sophy. “At least, you will be dead, but I expect you will know how it happened.”

Mr. Goldhanger gave an uneasy laugh. “And what would happen to you, my lady?” he asked.

“I don’t suppose that anything very much would happen to me,” she replied. “And I cannot conceive how that should interest you when you were dead. However, if it does, I will tell you just what I should say to the law officers.”

Mr. Goldhanger, forgetting his urbanity, said testily that he did not desire to hear it.

“You know,” said Sophy, frowning slightly, “I cannot help thinking that it might be a very good thing if I were to shoot you in any event. I did not mean to when I first came, because naturally I cannot approve of murder, but I see that you are a very evil man, and I cannot help wondering if a really courageous person would not shoot now and so rid the world of someone who has done a great deal of harm in it.”

“Put that silly gun away, and we will talk business!” Mr. Goldhanger besought her.

“There is nothing more to talk about, and I feel much more comfortable with the gun in my hand. Are you going to give me what I came for, or shall I go to Bow Street and inform them there that you tried to kidnap me?”

“My lady,” said Mr. Goldhanger, on a whining note, “I am only a poor man! You — ”

“You will be much richer when I have paid you back your five hundred pounds,” Sophy pointed out.

He brightened, for it had really seemed for a few minutes as though he might be forced to forgo even this sum. “Very well,” he said. “I do not wish any unpleasantness, so I will give back the bond. The ring I cannot give back, for it was stolen from me.”

“In that event,” said Sophy, “I shall certainly go to Bow Street, because I am persuaded they will not believe there, any more than I do, that it was stolen. If you have not got it, you must have sold it, and that means you may be prosecuted. I inquired of a most respectable jeweler only this morning what the law is with regard to pledged articles.”

Mr. Goldhanger, revolted by this unwomanly knowledge of the law, cast her a glance of loathing, and said, “I have not sold it!”

“No, and it was not stolen from you, either. I expect it is in one of the drawers of this desk, together with the bond, for I can’t imagine why you should have bought such a handsome piece of furniture, unless it was to lock valuables away in it. And it may even be that you keep a gun of your own in it, so perhaps I should warn you that if you pulled the trigger quicker than I did, I left a letter at my home to inform my parents precisely where I had gone to and what my purpose was.”

“If I had a daughter like you, I would be ashamed to own her!” said Mr. Goldhanger, with real feeling.

“Nonsense!” said Sophy. “You would probably be very proud of me, and would have taught me how to pick pockets. And if you had a daughter like me she would have scrubbed your floors for you and washed your shirt, so you would have been a deal better off than you are now. Pray do not keep me waiting any longer, for I am quite tired of talking to you, and, indeed, have found you a dead bore from the outset!”

Mr. Goldhanger had been called a villain, a bloodsucker, a cheat, a devil, a ghoul, and innumerable other hard names, but never had anyone told him that he was a dead bore, and never had any of his victims looked at him with such amused contempt. He would have liked to have closed his long, bony fingers round Sophy’s throat and choked the life slowly out of her. But Sophy held a gun, so instead he unlocked a drawer in his desk, and sought in it with a trembling hand for what he wanted. He thrust a ring and a scrap of paper across the desk, and said, “The money! Give me my money!”

Sophy picked the bond up, and read it; then she put it, with the ring, into her muff, and withdrew from this convenient receptacle a wad of bills and laid it on the desk. “There it is,” she said.

Mechanically, he began to count the bills. Sophy rose. “And now, if you please, will you be so obliging as to turn your chair round with its back to the door?”

Mr. Goldhanger almost snarled at her, but he complied with this request, saying over his shoulder, “You need not be afraid! I am very glad to see you go!” He added, quivering with fury, “Doxy!”

Sophy chuckled. Fitting the key into the lock and turning it, she said, “Well, I really believe I would rather be a doxy than a turnip dressed up in a sheet to frighten silly boys!”

“Turnip?” repeated Mr. Goldhanger. “Turnip — ?”

But his unwelcome guest had gone.