She nodded, her eyes fixed anxiously on his face.
‘Now we are in the basket!’ said his lordship.
Her heart sank. ‘I am so very sorry to be obliged to ask you!’
‘My dear girl, I’d give it to you this instant if I had it!’ he assured her. ‘What is it? A gaming debt? You been playing deep, Nell?’
‘No, no! It is a court dress of Chantilly lace, and I cannot – cannot! – tell Cardross!’
‘What, you don’t mean to say he’s turned out to be a screw?’ exclaimed the Viscount.
‘No! He has been crushingly generous to me, only I was so stupid, and it seemed as if I had so much money that – Well, I never took the least heed, Dy, and the end of it was that I got quite shockingly into debt!’
‘Good God, there’s no need to fall into flat despair, if that’s all!’ said the Viscount, relieved. ‘You’ve only to tell him how it came about: I daresay he won’t be astonished, for he must know you haven’t been in the way of handling the blunt. You’ll very likely come in for a thundering scold, but he’ll settle your debts all right and regular.’
She sank into a chair, covering her face with her hands. ‘He did settle them!’
‘Eh?’ ejaculated Dysart, startled.
‘I had better explain it to you,’ said Nell.
It could not have been said that the explanation, which was both halting and elusive, very much helped Dysart to a complete understanding of the situation, but he did gather from it that the affair was far more serious than he had at first supposed. He was quite intelligent enough to guess that the whole had not been divulged to him, but since he had no desire to plunge into deep matrimonial waters he did not press his sister for further enlightenment. Clearly, her marriage was not running as smoothly as he had supposed; and if that were so he could appreciate her reluctance to disclose the existence of yet another debt to Cardross.
‘What am I to do?’ Nell asked. ‘
Can you think of a way, Dy?’
‘Nothing easier!’ responded Dysart, in a heartening tone. ‘The trouble with you is that you ain’t up to snuff yet. The thing to do is to order another dress from this Madame Thing.’
‘Order another?’ gasped Nell.
‘That’s it,’ he nodded.
‘But then I should be even deeper in debt!’
‘Yes, but it’ll stave her off for a while.’
‘And when she presses me to pay for that I buy yet another! Dy, you must be mad!’
‘My dear girl, it’s always done!’
‘Not by me!’ she declared. ‘I should never know a moment’s peace! Only think what would happen if Cardross discovered it!’
‘There is that, of course,’ he admitted. He took a turn about the room, frowning over the problem. ‘The deuce is in it that I’m not in good odour with the cents-per-cent. I’d raise the wind for you in a trice if the sharks didn’t know dashed well how our affairs stand.’
‘Moneylenders?’ she asked. ‘I did think of that, only I don’t know how to set about borrowing. Do you know, Dy? Will you tell me?’
The Viscount was not a young man whose conscience was overburdened with scruples, but he did not hesitate to veto this suggestion. ‘No, I will not!’ he said.
‘I know one shouldn’t borrow from moneylenders, but in such a case as this – and if you went with me, Dy –’
‘A pretty fellow I should be!’ he interrupted indignantly. ‘Damn it, I ain’t a saint, but I ain’t such a loose-screw that I’d hand my sister over to one of those bloodsuckers!’
‘Is it so very bad? I didn’t know,’ she said. ‘Of course I won’t go to a moneylender if you say I must not.’
‘Well, I do say it. What’s more, if you did so, and Cardross discovered it, there would be the devil to pay! You’d a deal better screw up your courage, and tell him the whole now.’
She shook her head, flushing.