CHAPTER I

Although it was considerably after ten o’clock in the forenoon, dingy
stiff curtains still shut out the daylight from the office of Sharp &
Clipper, solicitors, of Lincoln’s Inn. At best it was a darkish room,
with massive, somber furnishing, but its present gloom in no way
affected the spirits of the two persons conversing therein. Humble
Sycamore, though seated at his desk, was paying scant attention to
clerkly duties. Leaning forward, and occasionally emphasizing the point
of his remarks with a quill pen, he was giving a vivid and animated
account of his previous evening’s visit to the playhouse, which, in
those days of 1776, was an adventure of magnitude. Trisket, the page
boy, listened spellbound, as one who hears of brilliant and intrepid
exploration in an unknown country.

“And did un fight, Mr. Sycamore?” he prompted, breathlessly, as the
clerk paused, to give better effect to a telling point.

“Fight? Nay, that he didn’t, for a more arrant knave ne’er stood in
honest shoe leather. But ’twas a sight to see him shaking with cowardice
the while he blustered–his wig awry, and a great pistol in either hand.
‘Bob Acres’ they called him, and, faith! he _was_ an ‘acher’ to me in
honest truth, for I nigh cracked my sides with laughter at him. If you
have ne’er seen a play, Trisket–“

“Nay, sir, I never have.”

“Then save your ha’pence and see that one to begin on. ‘Tis called ‘The
Rivals,’ and well ’tis named, for it can rival aught I’ve ever seen;
though I’m told it was a failure when they tried it first, last year.
‘The Rivals’ is the name: Dick Sheridan wrote it.”

“‘Dick’ Sheridan! _’Dick’!_ You know him, then?” questioned Trisket, in
awe-struck tones.

“Not I, forsooth,” disclaimed Sycamore, disdainfully. “But one calls
these player fellows ‘Dick’ or ‘Ben’ or ‘Davy,’ as ’twere any other
vagabond one spoke of. Know him, indeed! I ne’er heard of the knave
until last night, and would not have heard of him even then but that I
went to Covent Garden to bear a message to the new Lord Brandon, and
found his lordship hobnobbing with the rogue as though it were an equal
he clinked glasses with. ‘Twas ‘Dick’ here, and ‘dear Dick’ there, and
‘bonny Dick’ between the whiles, till one’s gorge rose at the very
sound of it. And all the time the fellow standing there, tricked out in
silk and velvet, as though ‘t were any gentleman, and as familiar with
his lordship as if the old Lord Brandon were not ten feet underground,
and the new one were still the playgoing vagabond he had been when his
father was alive.

“‘I’ll make your fortune, Dick,’ quoth he, laying his arm across the
fellow’s shoulders, I’ll give your name to all the corners of the earth,
and we’ll out-Garrick Garrick in his own field.’

“And then, ignoring _me_, they fell to talking of some ‘School for
Scandal’ that the fellow had in mind–as though a school for _that_ were
needed, and it were a goodly thing to build! And if it were, should not
players be the last to sanction it? Should not–“

The rising excitement in Sycamore’s tones was abruptly hushed. Outside,
a voice uttered a curt command.

“Yes, yes; that will do. Come for me at dusk.”

“The master!” cried Trisket softly, springing up from his stool and
carrying it with him to the window recess, where he placed it. Hastily
he drew back the curtains, exposing a view of old Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
and the passing figures of two servants bearing Mr. Sharp’s empty sedan
chair.

Sycamore jumped from his desk, and, bustling about, made a great show of
getting the place in order, at the same time berating the boy as though
he were solely to blame for the office not being open.

“Sluggard and idler!” he was declaiming loudly, as Humphrey Sharp
entered, slowly removing his gloves. “Nigh to eleven, and not a curtain
drawn yet! A lazy, idle, dawdling sloth! And with such a gentle, kindly
master! You’ll end in the workhouse, ingrate!”

“Sycamore!”

The master’s tone was keen, and betrayed annoyance. His clerk turned in
seeming amazement.

“Eh? Mr. Sharp! Oh, sir, is it you?”

“Aye. You are late this morning, Sycamore,” said Mr. Sharp, coldly. “It
has gone eleven, and the curtains but this moment drawn. Boy!”

Meekly Trisket came forward to receive the lawyer’s hat, gloves, and
gold-knobbed cane. Having hung up the hat, and placed near it the other
articles, he vanished discreetly to the small outer room.

“It was Trisket’s fault, sir,” protested Humble Sycamore. “I bade him be
here early, as the errand you sent me on last night would keep me up
late, and prevent early rising. But the untrustworthy ingrate must needs
go to the playhouse, and oversleep himself this morning. You must have
heard me scolding him when you entered. A graceless, idle, playgoing
imp! I found him sleeping when I came.”

“Better have slept for weeks than enter a playhouse once,” said Mr.
Sharp somewhat wearily. “Heaven knows we’ve had enough and to spare of
player-folk on our minds of late, Sycamore.”

“Aye, enough and to spare, sir, as you say.”

The lawyer went to his desk and, seating himself before it, began
methodically to arrange the accumulation of papers thereon. Presently he
glanced across at Sycamore.

“You carried my two messages yesterday?” he asked. “The one to the Lady
Eleanor Beaumont, the other to–” he hesitated, sighing a little, “to
the new Lord Brandon?”

“I did, sir.”

“And both will be here this morning?”

“Both, sir. Lady Eleanor bade me say she’d come as near eleven as
possible. She longs to see this fortunate cousin, on whom she has not
set eyes since she was a child.”

“Fortunate? Yes, he _is_ fortunate. It is not given every man to win
disinheritance as he won it, to flout a good and godly father by
associating with vile player-folk, and then, after adding to his
disgrace by becoming one of them–painting his face, and strutting in
tinsled finery for _pay_–to come into his own at last. Sycamore, I am
sure the late Lord Brandon never destroyed that will. He was at such
pains to have me draw it up for him, and to make it clear that not one
guinea of his money, not one foot of his land, should go to this
dissipated mummer who had defied and disgraced him. All was for his
sister’s child, the Lady Eleanor Beaumont, and, in his wrath, he made me
draw a will that left no weak spot for his son to break. He never
forgave that son, never looked on him, nor allowed his name to be
mentioned, to the hour of his death. Why, then, should he have destroyed
that will–if he _did_ destroy it?”

“Lady Eleanor thinks that he must have done so, sir.”

“Lady Eleanor! Yes, but–Ah, well! Get me the Brandon deed-box. In this
defective world, Sycamore, there would be nothing astonishing in the
disappearance of that will were it not that it left everything, without
reserve, to Lady Eleanor Beaumont herself. A girl of her high ideals and
pride of race, a girl who has often declared herself an usurper, and
called it ‘cruel her cousin might not have his own’–“

Humble Sycamore paused in amazement on the steps he had mounted to
secure the box bearing the white-lettered name “Brandon,” and looked
round at his employer.

“My faith! You cannot think that she–La, sir, no woman in her senses
would plan to rob herself of two hundred thousand pounds. It’s not in
nature, sir.”

“Considering the woman,” said Mr. Sharp, thoughtfully, “it’s not out of
it, I’ll be sworn.” He was silent long enough to open the deed-box
Sycamore had placed before him, and to withdraw from it several bundles
of documents and one loose parchment, then he continued: “The will was
made and witnessed in my presence at Brandon Hall. With my own eyes I
saw Lord Brandon place it in his cabinet, and Lady Eleanor saw it, too.
I have here,” he picked up the sheet of parchment, “the first rough
draft of the instrument as dictated by my lord himself, and practically
unchanged in the legal document. Only three persons in the world knew
where that document was deposited: Lord Brandon, Lady Eleanor, and
myself. Lord Brandon could not have removed it; _I_ did not. Thus there
remains but one conclusion–a conclusion which is not weakened by the
fact that Lady Eleanor accepts its disappearance as a sign that it no
longer exists, and strongly opposes any search being made for it.”

“But, God bless us, it’s absurd, sir! To suspect a lady of cheating
herself out of two hundred thousand pounds–cheating _herself_! My
faith, such an accusation would not stand in law for the time it would
take to make it.”

“No, it would not,” agreed the lawyer decisively. “So the question
confronting us is: What are Sharp & Clipper to do?”

“That’s the question, sir.”

“We cannot accuse the young lady of destroying a testament which put her
in possession of a large fortune, so our safest plan–“

“Our safest plan, sir, would be to do nothing.”

“Exactly so, Sycamore. My opinion is entirely in accordance with yours.
Our situation in regard to the Brandon inheritance is a most unusual
one.”

“Most unusual, sir. I–“

There came a knock at the door, and he left his sentence unfinished.
“Come in!” he said, instead, and Trisket entered.

“Lady Eleanor Beaumont, sir, and Miss Selina Chaffers,” he announced.

“Show them in,” directed Sharp, consulting his watch. “Late, of course.
Punctuality may be the politeness of kings, Sycamore, but it is not an
attribute of woman.”

He rose, bowing with courteous dignity as there entered a very beautiful
girl, dressed in deep mourning, followed by her maid and Miss Chaffers,
a lady of uncertain age, whose elaborate attire would have been better
suited to a girl of eighteen. The clerk hastened to place near Mr.
Sharp’s desk a comfortable chair for Lady Eleanor; for her companion he
arranged a seat more in the background, smiling ingratiatingly at her
as he did so. Toward the younger lady his manner expressed the humblest
deference; with the elder, his deference was tempered by an obvious
desire to flatter and please, an attitude, however, that escaped the
notice of any one but the lady herself, who accepted the attentions
graciously. Meanwhile Lady Eleanor apologized to the solicitor for her
tardy arrival.

“I am afraid,” she began, “that we are late–eleven was the hour your
clerk mentioned–but my aunt and I are unaccustomed to the streets of
London, and we lost our way.”

“Indeed, my lady, you are just in time. We were but this moment
discussing the case. May I beg you to be seated?” As the girl took the
chair Sycamore had placed for her, Mr. Sharp continued, somewhat
gravely: “May I ask, Lady Eleanor, whether the will has yet been found?”

“No, Mr. Sharp, it has not been found.”

“The search has been abandoned?”

“So far as I am concerned, it has,” responded the girl, with a slight
gesture of impatience. “But why speak of these things? Surely heaven is
a better judge than we of how the matters of earth should be ordained;
if it were not heaven’s intention, the document had not been destroyed.”

“You are convinced it _is_ destroyed?”

“How should I know, more than you? Its disappearance would argue its
destruction. Perhaps–who can tell–my uncle may have realized how grave
was the injustice of the deed which took from a Brandon all a Brandon
holds dear–his home, the cradle of his race, the pillar of his
strength–and gave them to an unworthy girl.”

“Not _unworthy_, Lady Eleanor. You malign yourself.”

“All are unworthy to hold a Brandon’s heritage who are not Brandons
born,” declared Lady Eleanor warmly. “What heaven gave my cousin by
right of birth, his father was not justified in taking away from him,
still less in giving it to me, an alien.”

Mr. Sharp regarded her with a penetrating expression.

“If I might quote,” he said, “from that half-god, half-knave who cast
his pearls to playhouse swine, I’d say ‘Methinks the lady doth protest
too much.’ You are the child of his late lordship’s sister, and
therefore _not_ an alien. Have you seen your cousin, Charles Brandon,
lately?”

“Not since we were boy and girl together.”

“You have not been to the theater, where, I am told, he struts the
boards with shameless effrontery, and plays the lover to women as wanton
as himself?”

“Heaven forbid!” cried Lady Eleanor, with a little shiver of distaste.
“I would as soon defile my mother’s grave as cross the threshold of a
playhouse door! No, no! My knowledge of my cousin is a memory only–a
sweet and tender memory.” She smiled, as if at a pleasant reminiscence.
“Then he was heir to Brandon Hall: a tall, brave youth, wanting but
seven years to make a man of him, and I a child of ten. My mother had
taken me with her for a visit to the Hall, and I–dear heaven, what a
happy time it was! My cousin bore himself toward me as though I were a
princess, not a beggar, and he the most devoted of courtiers. Not a day
but had some special glory in it; not a night without its happy dreams.
We walked and rode, he and I, through the long leafy lanes, and in the
green dusk of bird-enchanted woods; we sang, we romped, we gathered
flowers, and once when I fell and bruised my forehead on the earth,
he–he took my face between his palms, and kissed me. Oh, I remember it
all as if it were yesterday!”

“So it would seem,” commented Mr. Sharp, dryly. “Then, in defiance of
your uncle’s wishes, it is your desire that this profligate, this
mummer, this consort of vagabonds and rogues, should come into the
birthright he resigned to cast his lot with actors?”

The girl’s eyes shone with great seriousness of purpose.

“Yes, oh, yes,” she responded. “It is heaven’s pleasure as well as mine,
else it had not come to pass. Brandon Hall must have a Brandon for its
master. We shall see the glory of the house restored. Charles will leave
the players and their haunts, and return to his own again. Thus errors
of the past will be atoned for!”

“Ah–you think that probable, Lady Eleanor?” asked the old man, quietly.

“I am certain of it, Mr. Sharp,” came the answer, ringing with supreme
confidence. “When Charles alone represents the race, he’ll rise; he is
a Brandon; so have no fear.”

Seemingly her belief brought little conviction to the solicitor.

“Heaven knows I trust so,” he said, “if–if only to justify your faith
in him. To understand that his father knew his character, glance over
this document.” He handed her a parchment. “‘Tis a rough draft, almost
word for word, of the missing will, the testament actually signed. Read
it, my lady, as though it were the dead that spoke to you, and tell me
if you think it just such wishes should be disregarded.”

Somewhat confused, Lady Eleanor accepted and opened the document; she
bent her head over it, reading. Mr. Sharp sat leaning forward, his
elbows upon his desk, watching her intently. In their secluded corner,
Sycamore and Miss Chaffers conversed in undertones, unheeded by the
others.

“The loss of the will matters not to you, Miss Chaffers? You have still
those three hundred pounds a year, dear one?”

She nodded assent.

“La, Mr. Sycamore! Be careful, do; they’ll hear you,” she cautioned,
giggling. “How long since you called at Brandon Hall!”

A slight constraint that had been perceptible in the clerk’s manner
vanished completely at the reassuring news about Miss Chaffers’ income.

“I’ll call to-morrow, and the next day! I’ll call whensoe’er I
may–_Selina_!” he declared, ardently.

“La, how awful!” simpered the lady, coquettishly. “I mean–oh, you
naughty men! A girl scarce knows what to do to escape you!”

The bobbing feathers in her turban sadly interfered with Sycamore’s
attempts to bend gallantly over Miss Chaffers, and his efforts to blow
them aside distinctly marred the effect of his reply.

“Then don’t (puff), don’t try (puff), my (puff) own!” he whispered.

“La, Mr. Sycamore, aren’t you well?” demanded Miss Chaffers, unaware of
the cause of his embarrassment, but as she raised her face to look at
him the irritating decoration was removed.

“As well as I ever shall be, dear one,” he murmured eloquently, “until
that purse–I mean, that heart–is wholly mine, my soul’s own–“

At this point Mr. Sharp, in the silence becoming aware of their
conversation, intervened with a gruff:

“Sycamore!”

The clerk straightened up instantly. “Sir?”

“Business!” reminded Mr. Sharp, curtly, and Sycamore reluctantly
returned to his desk, secretly blowing a kiss to Selina from behind his
employer’s chair, whereupon Miss Chaffers giggled girlishly, hiding her
face behind her fan.

Mr. Sharp again turned his attention to Lady Eleanor, who, having
finished her perusal of the document, handed it back without a word. The
lawyer did not speak at once, divining her agitation.

“Well?” he asked, presently.

For a moment the distressed girl covered her face with both hands.

“It is cruel, it is unjust!” she exclaimed, looking up again. “I thank
heaven it was destroyed.”

“Ah, it _was_ destroyed, then?” persisted Mr. Sharp. “You are sure there
is no chance of its ever turning up?”

“No, no! There is never any chance of that, never any chance. Oh, my
poor cousin, what an ungenerous, unjust act it was!”

Outside in the street a sudden uproar rose, the sound of an excited
crowd approaching, but neither Mr. Sharp nor the Lady Eleanor paid the
slightest heed.

“Is that your final decision, Lady Eleanor?” questioned the old man,
gently, but very earnestly. “For the last time I ask you, is there no
likelihood of the late Lord Brandon’s will ever being carried into
execution?”

“None; if my prayers are answered,” replied the girl, her manner as
serious as his own.

Then she added, more vehemently, “Let the follies of the dead rest with
the dead; I’ll stake my honor by the living!”

“A goodly stake, indeed!” cried a laughing voice, “but may it prove no
such pest of the ‘living’ as falls to me.”

The lawyer sprang to his feet in amazement, staring indignantly at the
intruder, a finely set-up young man who stood leaning against the door
he had opened. Lady Eleanor half rose, but as she looked on the
handsome, merry face, she sank back into her chair again, her face
growing very white.

“Charles! Charles Brandon, at last!” she whispered to herself.

The youth had turned his gaze to the outer room through which he had
entered, and now addressed himself to some one there.

“Come in, Dick, prince of wits and king of noble runners!” he urged.
“Faith, we have given the rogues the slip, and are rid of them at last.”

“Aye, if they do not spot where we dodged in,” cried the newcomer,
accepting the invitation to enter. “Imperious Kit has set her heart on
doing honor to your fortune whether you will or no, and Kitty Clive’s
not one to be lightly eluded. Egad! She’ll have London scoured until she
finds you, man, and there’s half Drury’s ‘stock’ in her wake.”

“Her ‘wake,’ say you, Dick? Faith, there are seven days to every ‘wake’
in Kitty Clive’s vocabulary, so perchance we _may_ escape her.”

He turned, and bowed extravagantly to all present, doffing his hat with
a sweeping gesture that took in the whole company.

“My lords and ladies all, we give you grace,” he greeted them gallantly.
Then his glance fell on Lady Eleanor, and to her he bowed again, even
more deferentially. “‘Sweets to the sweet,’ oh, fair Ophelia! Dick, bow,
you knave! A lovelier face the sun ne’er shone on.”

With another quick change he addressed himself to the bewildered
solicitor.

“Pardon the interruption, but is this Sharp & Clipper I see before me?”

“I am Humphrey Sharp. Clipper is not here. This is merely my assistant.
And may I ask who you are, sir, and why you come dashing into my office
thus?”

“Egad, you may do both. To begin with, we ‘dashed in,’ as you express
it, to escape a plague of friends who insisted upon following, and who
made a spectacle of us rushing through the street when we cut off and
ran like madmen to escape them.” He laughed again. “Faith, Dick, Kit in
her chair urging her men to run with her, when we broke free and took to
our heels, is a sight that will last in my mind forever!” Once more he
spoke to the man of law. “So much for how and why I came ‘dashing in,’
my friend. For who I am: Charles Brandon, at your service; lord, by the
grace of God, and heir to Brandon Hall!”

To Lady Eleanor and Humble Sycamore the announcement conveyed no news,
but Mr. Sharp was obviously aghast.

“Charles Brandon! Sir–my lord–” he stammered, incredulously.

“Truth, yes. But, sir, the title may go hang for all of me. As for the
property, that’s a different matter, eh, Dick? There you touch a
yearning heart and an empty pocket.”

Inclining his head, he placed a hand over his heart, then indicated his
hip pocket, but Mr. Sharp paid no heed to his gestures. His attention
was concentrated on Lady Eleanor Beaumont.

“My lady, is this the cousin you have wished to meet?” he questioned,
sadly.

Brandon swept round, and once more doffed his hat with a brave flourish.

“What, is this my little cousin, the Lady Amelia?”

Eleanor frustrated his attempt to take her hands, drawing back with an
air of hauteur that should have discouraged his effusiveness, yet failed
to abash him.

“My–my name is Eleanor, sir,” she said, coldly.

“Why, so it is!” ejaculated Brandon, airily. “Dolt that I am! Nelly, I
used to call you, eh? And where are the flowing locks I used to pull
while you quite justly beat me for my rudeness?” Despite her reluctance,
he grasped her hands, pulling her this way and that, the better to
admire her, laughing appreciatively as he did so. “Little Nell! Bonny
coz! How tall you’ve grown, and–my guiding star–what a beauty! My
Nelly shall set the town afire, will she not, Dick? Here, Nell, let me
introduce my friend, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, author of ‘The Rivals.’
You’ve heard of the play, of course, if you haven’t seen it. All
London’s talking of it, Nell, as ’twill talk afresh when ‘The School for
Scandal’ is finished, and put on at Drury Lane, the long lane that’s to
have a turning shortly, eh, Dick? Richard, my soul’s own soul–my
cousin, the Lady Eleanor Beaumont. And here,” he turned to Miss
Chaffers, “oh, my prophetic soul, my uncle–I beg pardon–my aunt. Aunt
Selina, as I live! Well, aunt, how many hearts have you broken at
Brandon since I left it? Hundreds, I’ll warrant. Egad, you do right to
come to town at last, sweet Sal: we’ll marry you to a Duke, eh, Dick?
Selina, fair Selina, your unworthy nephew kisses your hand.”

Miss Chaffers snatched away her hand indignantly.

“Unworthy nephew, indeed! Unworthy reprobate, say I, and always have
done!” cried she.

“Aye, so you have, dear aunt,” concurred Brandon, sweet-temperedly, “and
what a goodly knave am I to verify your kind predictions. Think how many
graceless whelps have given the lie to loving relatives, becoming
canting, philanthropic, virtuous, honest paragons of perfection, when
the downward way was foretold of them. Out on all such thankless dogs,
who’d give the lie to those who love them. I am none such! I have proved
sinner, basilisk, miscreant, rascal, rogue, doer of evil deeds, and
worker of iniquity; all this that my gentle aunt might say: ‘I told you
so!’ Dick, Dick, an’ you were not already married, I’d bestow thee on
this blushing Hebe here, and write thee down ‘mine uncle’!”

Lady Eleanor’s beautiful brow contracted as if with pain, while she
listened to her cousin’s persiflage. She broke into his speech with
quiet reproof.

“Sir, I wonder at your levity. Surely, at such a time–“

“Time, say you, Nell? Time is for ruling slaves, sweet coz, and its
shackles were not forged to bind one so blest as I.”

“So _blest_ as you?”

“Aye. Who could be better blest? ‘Whatever comes naught matters so that
money comes withal.’ What am I worth, old Law Books?” he demanded
abruptly of Sharp, who responded coldly:

“I do not understand you, sir.”

“You’d be wiseacre indeed if you did, for there are times when I scarce
understand myself, eh, Dick? But, in plain language, what income falls
to me? Heir to all my father had to leave, what money will the estate
pay me year by year?”

“I cannot say to a fraction, my lord, but it is something over ten
thousand pounds.”

“Ten thousand! Not more? Then it is not enough.”

“Not enough?” echoed Lady Eleanor, in amazement.

“No, coz; not enough for my purpose! ‘T would take two years, and not a
stiver spent, to reach the sum I’ve set my heart on having ready to hand
before I’m two months older. And that being so–” Again the young lord
directed his attention to Mr. Sharp. “Speak up, Injunctions: what would
it sell for?”

“Sell for? Surely, my lord, you–you don’t mean Brandon Hall?”

“Aye, that I do. What else have I to sell, Red Tape? Come, let’s have
the figure in a word.”

“The figure–the figure Brandon Hall would sell for?”

“Yes; put up at auction–this week or the next–what would it fetch in
cash?”

“My lord!”

The lawyer’s tone of horrified dismay seemed slightly to irritate the
good-natured young man.

“Lord me no lords,” he said, more brusquely than he had yet spoken.
“Give answer if you know, or, if you do not–“

The sentence remained incomplete, broken by the sudden entrance of a
panting man, and as the door opened to admit him there entered also the
sound of many voices, and eager, trampling feet. The newcomer cried
breathless caution:

“Charles! Dick! It’s all up with the pair of you. I saw where you dodged
in, and did my best to throw the others off the scent, but as well try
to turn the hounds from a running fox as strive to deflect Kitty Clive
from a thing she’s set her mind upon. The baggage sent her bearers
racing through the streets to get wind of you, and they found, at last,
a rattletrap who’d seen you enter here.”

Brandon’s momentary annoyance vanished, and he threw back his head in
laughter.

“Oh, wondrous Kit!” he exclaimed. “You hear, Dick? We’re unearthed; and
the man who’d run twice from Kitty Clive–perish the thought! Where is
she now, Woodward? Close at hand?”

“Aye; and all the others in her train. There’s not a man of Covent
Garden’s ‘stock’ she has not enlisted in the game. She is determined to
make heyday and a holiday of your luck, Charlie, and to be ‘in at the
death’ with horse and hounds, and such a cracking of bottles as will be
remembered for a month. I ran ahead to give warning lest you should
still be minded to slip the leash, and show her a clean pair of heels.”

“Hm-m!” said Brandon. “Who shows his heels once to Kitty Clive is a
brave man, but he who shows them twice is–what?”

“A fool, and worse,” responded Sheridan, promptly, “for he confounds
himself, and flies from what half the town declares is _all_ the town
contains. To run from Kit? There are no men in London but ourselves
who’d dare to do it, and even we, having done it once–“

“Will forget our folly, and not do it again,” Brandon concluded. “Let
her come, Woodward; man cannot escape his fate, and he who’d escape it
when it arrives in such sweet shape as Kitty Clive, deserves the
rack–and more. Sweet Kit! Wild Kit! Incomparable Kit! Open the door to
her, and let her have her will.”

Then he seemed to recall the object of his presence in the dingy
business office, and endeavored again to extract an answer from the
reluctant man of law.

“Now, Ancient Dockets,” he commanded, turning to Sharp, “let’s get on
with what we have in hand. Or, no! A moment, please. Woodward, my king
of Romeos, here’s a Juliet to your liking. Aunt Selina, let me present
my friend, William Woodward of Garrick’s company, who, though a player
at a rival house, I can recommend to you as one who does the ‘sighing
lover’ well. Gaze on him, sweet maid, and let your ‘eye discourse,’ for
half the damsels in London town have broke their hearts for love of him.
‘Is he not strangely beautiful?’ William, my soul’s own soul–my aunt,
Miss Selina Chaffers, a pearl beyond price, and with a price beyond
pearls. I offer to the lucky jeweler who sets her in his home–and takes
her out of mine–two thousand pounds in solid cash the day he leads her
to the altar. Go in, sweet Will, and heaven prosper–and pity–thee.”

Entering into the spirit of Brandon’s jocularity, Woodward acknowledged
the introduction with exaggerated courtesy, but the financial
proposition brought a covetous and calculating flash to the eyes of
Humble Sycamore. He abandoned his desk, and crossed to the side of Miss
Chaffers, as if determined to brook no rival whom he regarded as a mere
playacting vagabond.

“Two thousand pounds!” he murmured inaudibly, and set himself to the
task of absorbing Selina’s undivided attention, but in this he did not
wholly succeed. Miss Chaffers was in her element, and meant to make the
most of her opportunity. Coquettishly she evaded the flatteries of both.

“La! Get away!” she simpered. “I never saw the like! You awful men! You
tease a girl to death!”

Meanwhile Lord Brandon had become all seriousness again.

“Now, Money Bags,” he continued, addressing Mr. Sharp, “we’ll back to
where we started, and get as near as your sealed and red-tape bound
brains will let you go, to the price that Brandon Hall would bring if it
were put up, lock, stock, and barrel, to be sold to the highest bidder.
Come, out with the price: what will it fetch in good, honest gold?”

Mr. Sharp ignored him, looking instead at Eleanor; speaking to her.

“He’d sell the place, my lady–you hear? He’d _sell_ Brandon Hall.”

“Aye, that I would,” assented Brandon proudly, placing one hand
affectionately on Sheridan’s shoulder. “For Dickon here, I’d sell my
right to enter heaven, or mortgage my warm niche by Satan’s kitchen
blaze to see Old Drury his, and Teazel, as he’s drawn her, tread the
boards _alive_!”

“Charlie, what did I tell you?” broke in Woodward. “Here’s Kitty
herself, and all the crowd with her.”

Looking toward the window, the others saw pass a sedan chair borne by
liveried attendants, and surrounded by a laughing, boisterous throng. An
instant later the door was burst violently open, and the crowd trooped
in with cheers and shouting, dividing to left and right as Kitty Clive
was carried through it in her chair. Outside the window an eager mob
stood peering into the room, in a state of intense excitement.

“Have at ye for a pair of scurvy knaves, to lead a lady such a chase as
this!” cried Kitty, leaning from her chair, and laughing at Lord Brandon
and Richard Sheridan. “A man, a man! My kingdom for a man! I’m shut in
like a bird in a cage, and not a hand stretched forth to set me free.”

Sheridan sprang forward to assist her, but she waved him aside.

“Away, ye bundle of immense conceit! ‘Twas a man I called for, not a
hen-pecked thing like ye!”

“Will I do, Kit, sweet lass?” asked Brandon, leaving Eleanor’s side.

“Aye, at a pinch, though it’s a poor apology ye are to one who’s used to
have her pick and call,” she answered, giving him her hand,
nevertheless. He helped her to alight, then the bearers took up her
chair and went out, standing aside for a moment to permit the entrance
of two liveried servants bringing hampers.

“Rogue, to run away from me as if I were a thing to fright the eyes of
all the town,” went on Kitty, with pretended petulance. “Ne’er did men
the like to Kitty Clive before, and ye’ve hurt me in my strongest point,
my vanity.”

“Nay, Kit,” retorted Brandon, “you’re armored there so thickly that not
a shot could reach you, nor a shaft pass through.”

Affecting deep disdain, Kitty Clive turned her back on her cavalier, and
thus for the first time glimpsed the righteously horrified features of
Miss Selina Chaffers. Instantly she whirled round again, clutching
Brandon’s arm as though in extreme fear.

“Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” she ejaculated,
melodramatically. “Charlie, ye dog, is yon the ruins of your ancient
house? Give it a name, Charlie, give it a name, and ‘let me not burst in
ignorance.'”

“Miss Chaffers,” explained Brandon, “is my maiden aunt a dozen times
removed.”

“Then remove her once again, and get her out of sight entirely,”
entreated Kitty. “‘The evil that men do lives after them, the good–‘”
Her bright, alert eyes, searching the dim old room, discovered Lady
Eleanor, who had recoiled from the unwelcome intruders, and stood
watching them, with evident distress, from the sheltering shadow.

“‘What light from yonder window breaks?'” cried Kitty, abruptly changing
her quotation. “‘It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.’ Aha, ye rogue,
no wonder that ye flew hotfoot to outwit us all! Is yon an ‘auntie,’
too, ye dog?”

“It does not matter,” said Brandon, coldly. “You’d not understand her
like, nor she the like of–us! Come, Sharp, to business, man! You have
not told me yet what Brandon Hall, in the market, would bring. Set me
its price, and set it so my friends may hear. Put up for sale,–mansion,
demesnes, timber, furniture, farms, and all,–what would it bring in
good, red English gold?”

“Two hundred thousand pounds at least, my lord.”

A murmur of astonishment and delight ran through the room.

“Two hundred thousand pounds!” echoed Brandon, all gravity
disappearing. “You hear, Dick? You hear? It’s joy, good Dick, it’s joy
for us at last!”

“And joy for all who know ye, Charlie, lad!” shouted Kitty, and even her
boisterousness could not conceal the sincerity of her pleasure. “A
bumper, quick! A bumper to the lucky dog. Wine for my lord! Wine for the
multitude! Wine for two hundred thousand pounds!”

The servants at the door, setting down the hampers, which were
immediately seized upon by the throng, hurried to a table and cleared it
of its load of bundled documents by the simple expedient of shooting all
off on the floor. Carrying it to the center of the room, they set out on
it bottles and glasses taken from the hampers.

“Madam, you go too far!” protested the indignant and wrathful Mr. Sharp.
“This is my office; those my deeds!”

But his words availed nothing; for the time being the room and all it
contained belonged to Kitty and her friends, and Brandon himself led the
revelry.

“Thy deeds be on thy head, then!” he answered, merrily, catching up a
bundle of documents and shying it at him. It missed the lawyer, and
crashed through the window, causing some confusion in the watching crowd
outside, but Brandon laughed uproariously.

“Whate’er the damage, set it down to me. Two hundred thousand pounds! Up
with the Hall for sale to-morrow, man,–lock, stock, and barrel,–to the
highest bidder!”

“My lord!” protested Sharp, in dismay. Lady Eleanor stepped bravely
forward, her beautiful eyes turned appealingly on her cousin.

“Charles! You’d sell Brandon Hall? Sell your ancestral home?”

“Aye, every stick and stone of it to serve the purpose that I have in
view. Garrick shall out! Dick Sheridan shall have Drury Lane, and all
the world shall wonder!”

Amidst enthusiastic cheers from his comrades, Lord Brandon snatched up a
glass, and sprang on to the table.

“I’ll make thee, Dick–I’ll make thee though I break myself, and tread
the boards, a beggar, once again. Old Drury shall be yours; the whole
world shall echo to your fame! Up with your glasses: up, you knaves! For
Sheridan! For Sheridan! For Sheridan!”

Amidst the wildest acclamations was the toast responded to, but apart
from the motley of movement and color stood the slender, black-gowned
figure of Lady Eleanor, white-faced, and intensely sad.

“Was it for this,” she murmured, “for _this_!”