OF course,” said Lady Innisfail to Edmund Airey the next day. “Of course, if Harold alone had rescued Helen from her danger last night, all would have been well. You know as well as I do that when a man rescues a young woman from a position of great danger, he can scarcely do less than ask her to marry him.”
“Of course,” replied Edmund. “I really can’t see how, if he has any dramatic appreciation whatever, he could avoid asking her to marry him.”
“It is beyond a question,” said Lady Innisfail. “So that if Harold had been alone in the boat all would have been well. The fact of Miss Avon’s being also in the boat must, however, be faced. It complicates matters exceedingly.”
Edmund shook his head gravely.
“I knew that you would see the force of it,” resumed Lady Innisfail. “And then there is his father—his father must be taken into account.”
“It might be as well, though I know that Lord Fotheringay’s views are the same as yours.”
“I am sure that they are; but why, then, does he come here to sit by the side of the other girl and interest her as he did last evening?”
“Lord Fotheringay can never be otherwise than interesting, even to people who do not know how entirely devoid of scruple he is.”
“Of course I know all that; but why should he come here and sit beside so very pretty a girl as this Miss Avon?”
“There is no accounting for tastes, Lady Innisfail.
“You are very stupid, Mr. Airey. What I mean is, why should Lord Fotheringay behave in such a way as must force his son’s attention to be turned in a direction that—that—in short, it should not be turned in? Heaven knows that I want to do the best for Harold—I like him so well that I could almost wish him to remain unmarried. But you know as well as I do, that it is absolutely necessary for him to marry a girl with a considerable amount of money.”
“That is as certain as anything can be. I gave him the best advice in my power on this subject, and he announced his intention of asking Miss Craven to marry him.”
“But instead of asking her he strolled round the coast to that wretched cave, and there met, by accident, the other girl—oh, these other girls are always appearing on the scene at the wrong moment.”
“The world would go on beautifully if it were not for the Other Girl.” said Edmund. “If you think of it, there is not an event in history that has not turned upon the opportune or inopportune appearance of the Other Girl. Nothing worth speaking of has taken place, unless by the agency of the Other Girl.”
“And yet Lord Fotheringay comes here and sits by the side of this charming girl, and his son watches him making himself interesting to her as, alas! he can do but too easily. Mr. Airey, I should not be surprised if Harold were to ask Miss Avon to-day to marry him—I should not, indeed.”
“Oh, I think you take too pessimistic a view of the matter altogether, Lady Innisfail. Anyhow, I don’t see that we can do more than we have already done. I think I should feel greatly inclined to let Providence and Lord Fotheringay fight out the matter between them.”
“Like the archangel and the Other over the body of Moses?”
“Well, something like that.”
“No, Mr. Airey; I don’t believe in Providence as a match-maker.”
Mr. Airey gave a laugh. He wondered if it was possible that Harold had mentioned to her that he, Edmund, had expressed the belief that Providence as a match-maker had much to learn.
“I don’t see how we can interfere,” said he. “I like Harold Wynne greatly. He means to do something in the world, and I believe he will do it. He affords a convincing example of the collapse of heredity as a principle. I like him if only for that.”
Lady Innisfail looked at him in silence for a few moments.
“Yes,” she said, slowly. “Harold does seem to differ greatly from his father. I wonder if it is the decree of Providence that has kept him without money.”
“Do you suggest that the absence of money—?”
“No, no; I suggest nothing. If a man must be wicked he’ll be wicked without money almost as readily as with it. Only I wonder, if Harold had come in for the title and the property—such as it was—at the same age as his father was when he inherited all, would he be so ready as you say he is to do useful work on the side of the government of his country?”
“That is a question for the philosophers,” said Edmund.
In this unsatisfactory way the conversation between Lady Innisfail and Mr. Airey on the morning after Lord Fotheringay’s arrival at the Castle, came to an end. No conversation that ends in referring the question under consideration to the philosophers, can by any possibility be thought satisfactory. But the conversation could not well be continued when Miss Craven, by the side of Miss Avon, was seen to be approaching.
Edmund Airey turned his eyes upon the two girls, then they rested upon the face of Beatrice.
As she came closer his glance rested upon the eyes of Beatrice. The result of his observation was to convince him that he had never before seen such beautiful eyes.
They were certainly gray; and they were as full of expression as gray eyes can be. They were large, and to look into them seemed like looking into the transparent depths of an unfathomed sea—into the transparent heights of an inexhaustible heaven.
A glimpse of heaven suggests the bliss of the beatified. A glimpse of the ocean suggests shipwreck.
He knew this perfectly well as he looked at her eyes; but only for an instant did it occur to him that they conveyed some message to him.
Before he had time to think whether the message promised the bliss of the dwellers in the highest heaven, or the disaster of those who go down into the depths of the deepest sea, he was inquiring from Helen Craven if the chill of which she had complained on the previous night, had developed into a cold.
Miss Craven assured him that, so far from experiencing any ill effects from her adventure, she had never felt better in all her life.
“But had it not been for Miss Avon’s hearing my cries of despair, goodness knows where I should have been in another ten minutes,” she added, putting her arm round Miss Avon’s waist, and looking, as Edmund had done, into the mysterious depths of Miss Avon’s gray eyes.
“Nonsense!” said Miss Avon. “To tell you the plain truth, I did not hear your cries. It was Mr. Wynne who said he heard the White Lady wailing for her lover.”
“How could he translate the cry so accurately?” said Edmund. “Do you suppose that he had heard the Banshee’s cry at the same place?”
He kept his eyes upon Miss Avon’s face, and he saw in a moment that she was wondering how much he knew of the movements of Harold Wynne during the previous two nights.
Helen Craven looked at him also pretty narrowly. She was wondering if he had told anyone that he had suggested to her the possibility of Harold’s being in the neighbourhood of the Banshee’s Cave during the previous evening.
Both girls laughed in another moment, and then Edmund Airey laughed also—in a sort of way. Lady Innisfail was the last to join in the laugh. But what she laughed at was the way in which Edmund had laughed.
And while this group of four were upon the northern terrace, Harold was seated the side of his father on one of the chairs that faced the south. Lord Fotheringay was partial to a southern aspect. His life might be said to be a life of southern aspects. He meant that it should never be out of the sun, not because some of the incidents that seemed to him to make life worth preserving were such as could best stand the searching light of the sun, but simply because his was the nature of the butterfly. He was a butterfly of fifty-seven—a butterfly that found it necessary to touch up with artificial powders the ravages of years upon the delicate, downy bloom of youth—a butterfly whose wings had now and again been singed by contact with a harmful flame—whose still shapely body was now and again bent with rheumatism. Surely the rheumatic butterfly is the most wretched of insects!
He had fluttered away from a fresh singeing, he was assuring his son. Yes, he had scarcely strength left in his wings to carry him out of the sphere of influence of the flame. He had, he said in a mournful tone, been very badly treated. She had treated him very badly. The Italian nature was essentially false—he might have known it—and when an Italian nature is developed with a high soprano, very shrill in its upper register, the result was—well, the result was that the flame had singed the wings of the elderly insect who was Harold’s father.
“Talk of money!” he cried, with so sudden an expression of emotion that a few caked scraps of sickly, roseate powder fluttered from the crinkled lines of his forehead—Talk of money! It was not a matter of hundreds—he was quite prepared for that—but when the bill ran up to thousands—thousands—thousands—oh, the whole affair was sickening. (Harold cordially agreed with him, though he did not express himself to this effect). Was it not enough to shake one’s confidence in woman—in human nature—in human art (operatic)—in the world?
Yes, it was the Husband.
The Husband, Lord Fotheringay was disposed to regard in pretty much the same light as Mr. Airey regarded the Other Girl. The Husband was not exactly the obstacle, but the inconvenience. He had a habit of turning up, and it appeared that in the latest of Lord Fotheringay’s experiences his turning up had been more than usually inopportune.
“That is why I followed so close upon the heels of my letter to you,” said the father. “The crash came in a moment—it was literally a crash too, now that I think upon it, for that hot-blooded ruffian, her husband, caught one corner of the table cloth—we were at supper—and swept everything that was on the table into a corner of the room. Yes, the bill is in my portmanteau. And she took his part. Heavens above! She actually took his part. I was the scoundrel—briccone!—the coarse Italian is still ringing in my ears. It was anything but a charming duetto. He sang a basso—her upper register was terribly shrill—I had never heard it more so. Artistically the scene was a failure; but I had to run for all that. Humiliating, is it not, to be overcome by something that would, if subjected to the recognized canons of criticism, be pronounced a failure? And he swore that he would follow me and have my life. Enough. You got my letter. Fortune is on your side, my boy. You saved her life last night.”
“Whose life did I save?” asked the son. “Whose life? Heavens above! Have you been saving more than one life?”
“Not more than one—a good deal less than one. Don’t let us get into a sentimental strain, pater. You are the chartered—ah, the chartered sentimentalist of the family. Don’t try and drag me into your strain. I’m not old enough. A man cannot pose as a sentimentalist nowadays until he is approaching sixty.”
“Really? Then I shall have to pause for a year or two still. Let us put that question aside for a moment. Should I be exceeding my privileges if I were to tell you that I am ruined?—Financially ruined, I mean, of course; thank heaven, I am physically as strong as I was—ah, three years ago.”
“You said something about my allowance, I think.”
“If I did not I failed in my duty as a father, and I don’t often do that, my boy—thank God, I don’t often do that.”
“No,” said Harold. “If the whole duty of a father is comprised in acquainting his son with the various reductions that he says he finds it necessary to make in his allowance, you are the most exemplary of fathers, pater.”
“There is a suspicion of sarcasm—or what is worse, epigram in that phrase,” said the father. “Never mind, you cannot epigram away the stern fact that I have now barely a sufficient income to keep body and soul together. I wish you could.”
“So do I,” said Harold. “But yours is a ménage à trois. It is not merely body and soul with your but body, soul, and sentiment—it is the third element that is the expensive one.”
“I dare say you are right. Anyhow, I grieve for your position, my boy. If it had pleased Heaven to make me a rich man, I would see that your allowance was a handsome one.”
“But since it has pleased the other Power to make you a poor one—”
“You must marry Miss Craven—that’s the end of the whole matter, and an end that most people would be disposed to regard as a very happy one, too. She is a virtuous young woman, and what is better, she dresses extremely well. What is best of all, she has several thousands a year.”
There was a suggestion of the eighteenth century phraseology in Lord Fotheringay’s speech, that made him seem at least a hundred years old. Surely people did not turn up their eyes and talk of virtue since the eighteenth century, Harold thought. The word had gone out. There was no more need for it. The quality is taken for granted in the nineteenth century.
“You are a trifle over-vehement,” said he.
“Have I ever refused to ask Miss Craven to marry me?”
“Have you ever asked her—that’s the matter before us?”
“Never. But what does that mean? Why, simply that I have before me instead of behind me a most interesting quarter of an hour—I suppose a penniless man can ask a wealthy woman inside a quarter of an hour, to marry him. The proposition doesn’t take longer in such a case than an honourable one would.”
“You are speaking in a way that is not becoming in a son addressing his father,” said Lord Fotheringay. “You almost make me ashamed of you.”
“You have had no reason to be ashamed of me yet,” said Harold. “So long as I refrain from doing what you command me to do, I give you no cause to be ashamed of me.”
“That is a pretty thing for a son to say,” cried the father, indignantly.
“For heaven’s sake don’t let us begin a family broil under the windows of a house where we are guests,” said the son, rising quickly from the chair. “We are on the border of a genuine family bickering. For God’s sake let us stop in time.”
“I did not come here to bicker,” said the father. “Heavens above! Am I not entitled to some show of gratitude at least for having come more than a thousand miles—a hundred of them in an Irish train and ten of them on an Irish jolting car—simply to see that you are comfortably settled for life?”
“Yes,” said the son, “I suppose I should feel grateful to you for coming so far to tell me that you are ruined and that I am a partner in your ruin.” He had not seated himself, and now he turned his back upon his father and walked round to the west side of the Castle where some of the girls were strolling. They were waiting to see how the day would develop—if they should put on oilskins and sou’westers or gauzes and gossamer—the weather on the confines of the ocean knows only the extremes of winter or summer.
The furthest of the watchers were, he perceived, Edmund Airey and Miss Avon. He walked toward them, and pronounced in a somewhat irresponsible way an opinion upon the weather.
Before the topic had been adequately discussed, Mr. Durdan and another man came up to remind Mr. Airey that he had given them his word to be of their party in the fishing boat, where they were accustomed to study the Irish question for some hours daily.
Mr. Airey protested that his promise had been wholly a conditional one. It had not been made on the assumption that the lough should be moaning like a Wagnerian trombone, and it could not be denied that such notes were being produced by the great rollers beneath the influence of a westerly wind.
Harold gave a little shrug to suggest to Beatrice that the matter was not one that concerned her or himself in the least, and that it might be as well if Mr. Airey and his friends were left to discuss it by themselves.
The shrug scarcely suggested all that he meant it to suggest, but in the course of a minute he was by the side of the girl a dozen yards away from the three men.
“I wonder if you chanced to tell Mr. Airey of the queer way you and I met,” she said in a moment.
“How could I have told any human being of that incident?” he cried. “Why do you ask me such a question?”
“He knows all about it—so much is certain,” said she. “Oh, yes, he gave me to understand so much—not with brutal directness, of course.”
“No, I should say not—brutal directness is not in his line,” said Harold.
“But the result is just the same as if he had been as direct as—as a girl.”
“As a girl?”
“Yes. He said something about Miss Craven’s voice having suggested something supernatural to Brian, and then he asked me all at once if there had been any mist on the previous evening when I had rowed across the lough. Now I should like to know how he guessed that I had crossed the lough on the previous night.”
“He is clever—diabolically clever,” said Harold after a pause. “He was with Miss Craven in the hall—they had been dancing—when I returned—I noticed the way he looked at me. Was there anything in my face to tell him that—that I had met you?”
She looked at his face and laughed.
“Your face,” she said. “Your face—what could there have been apparent on your face for Mr. Airey to read?”
“What—what?” his voice was low. He was now looking into her gray eyes. “What was there upon my face? I cannot tell. Was it a sense of doom? God knows. Now that I look upon your face—even now I cannot tell whether I feel the peace of God which passes understanding, or the doom of those who go down to the sea and are lost.”
“I do not like to hear you speak in that way,” said she. “It would be better for me to die than to mean anything except what is peaceful and comforting to all of God’s creatures.”
“It would be better for you to die,” said he. He took his eyes away from hers. They stood side by side in silence for some moments, before he turned suddenly to her and said in quite a different strain. “I shall row you across the lough when you are ready. Will you go after lunch?”
“I don’t think that I shall be going quite so soon,” said she. “The fact is that Lady Innisfail was good enough to send Brian with another letter to my father—a letter from herself, asking my father to come to the Castle for a day or two, but, whether he comes or not, to allow me to remain for some days.”
Again some moments passed before Harold spoke.
“I want you to promise to let me know where you go when you leave Ireland,” said he. “I don’t want to lose sight of you. The world is large. I wandered about in it for nearly thirty years before meeting you.”
She was silent. It seemed as if she was considering whether or not his last sentence should be regarded as a positive proof of the magnitude of the world.
She appeared to come to the conclusion that it would be unwise to discuss the question—after all, it was only a question of statistics.
“If you wish it,” said she, “I shall let you know our next halting-place. I fancy that my poor father is less enthusiastic than he was some years ago on the subject of Irish patriotism. At any rate, I think that he has worked out all the battles fought in this region.”
“Only let me know where you go,” said he. “I do not want to lose sight of you. What did you say just now—peace and comfort to God’s creatures? No, I do not want to lose sight of you.”
THE people—Edmund Airey was one of them—who were accustomed to point to Harold Wynne as an example of the insecurity of formulating any definite theory of heredity, had no chance of being made aware of the nature of the conversations in which he had taken part, or they might not have been quite so ready to question the truth of that theory.
His father had made it plain to him, both by letter and word of mouth, that the proper course for him to pursue was one that involved asking Helen Craven to marry him—the adoption of any other course, even a prosaic one, would practically mean ruin to him; and yet he had gone straight from the side of his father, not to the side of Miss Craven, but to the side of Miss Avon. And not only had he done this, but he had looked into the gray eyes of Beatrice when he should have been gazing with ardour—or simulated ardour—into the rather lustreless orbs of Helen.
To do precisely the thing which he ought not to have done was certainly a trait which he had inherited from his father.
But he had not merely looked into the eyes of the one girl when he should have been looking into those of the other girl, he had spoken into her ears such words as would, if spoken into the ears of the other girl, have made her happy. The chances were that the words which he had spoken would lead to unhappiness. To speak such words had been his father’s weakness all his life, so that it seemed that Harold had inherited this weakness also.
Perhaps for a moment or two, after Edmund Airey had sauntered up, having got the better of the argument with Mr. Durdan—he flattered himself that he had invariably got the better of him in the House of Commons—Harold felt that he was as rebellious against the excellent counsels of his father as his father had ever been against the excellent precepts which society has laid down for its own protection. He knew that the circumstance of his father’s having never accepted the good advice which had been offered to him as freely as advice, good and bad, is usually offered to people who are almost certain not to follow it, did not diminish from the wisdom of the course which his father had urged upon him to pursue. He had acknowledged to Edmund Airey some days before, that the substance of the advice was good, and had expressed his intention of following it—nay, he felt even when he had walked straight from his father’s side to indulge in that earnest look into the eyes of Beatrice, that it was almost inevitable that he should take the advice of his father; for however distasteful it may be, the advice of a father is sometimes acted on by a son. But still the act of rebellion had been pleasant to him—as pleasant to him as his father’s acts of the same character had been to his father.
And all this time Helen Craven was making her usual elaborate preparations for finishing her sketch of some local scene, and everyone knew that she could not seek that scene unless accompanied by someone to carry her umbrella and stool.
Lord Fotheringay perceived this in a moment from his seat facing the south. He saw that Providence was on the side of art, so to speak—assuming that a water-colour sketch of a natural landscape by an amateur is art, and assuming that Providence meant simply an opportunity for his son to ask Miss Craven to marry him.
Lord Fotheringay saw how Miss Craven lingered with her colour-box in one hand and her stool in the other. What was she waiting for? He did not venture to think that she was waiting for Harold to saunter up and take possession of her apparatus, but he felt certain that if Harold were to saunter up, Miss Craven’s eyes would brighten—so far as such eyes as hers could brighten. His teeth met with a snap that threatened the gold springs when he saw some other man stroll up and express the hope that Miss Craven would permit him to carry her stool and umbrella, for her sketching umbrella was brought from the hall by a servant.
Lord Fotheringay’s indignation against his son was great afterwards. He made an excellent attempt to express to Edmund Airey what he felt on the subject of Harold’s conduct, and Edmund shook his head most sympathetically.
What was to be done, Lord Fotheringay inquired. What was to be done in order to make Harold act in accordance with the dictates not merely of prudence but of necessity as well?
Mr. Airey could not see that any positive action could be taken in order to compel Harold to adopt the course which every sensible person would admit was the right course—in fact the only course open to him under the circumstances. He added that only two days ago Harold had admitted that he meant to ask Miss Craven to marry him.
“Heavens above!” cried Lord Fotheringay. “He never admitted so much to me. Then what has occurred to change him within a few days?”
“In such a case as this it is as well not to ask what but who,” remarked Edmund.
Lord Fotheringay looked at him eagerly. “Who—who—you don’t mean another girl?”
“Why should I not mean another girl?” said Edmund. “You may have some elementary acquaintance with woman, Lord Fotheringay.”
“I have—yes, elementary,” admitted Lord Fotheringay.
“Then surely you must have perceived that a man’s attention is turned away from one woman only by the appearance of another woman,” said Edmund.
“You mean that—by heavens, that notion occurred to me the moment that I saw her. She is a lovely creature, Airey.”
“‘A gray eye or so!’ said Airey.”
“A gray eye or so!” cried Lord Fotheringay, who had not given sufficient attention to the works of Shakespeare to recognize a quotation. “A gray—Oh, you were always a cold-blooded fellow. Such eyes, Airey, are so uncommon as—ah, the eyes are not to the point. They only lend colour to your belief that she is the other girl. Yes, that notion occurred to me the moment she entered the hall.”
“I believe that but for her inopportune appearance Harold would now be engaged to Miss Craven,” said Edmund.
“There’s not the shadow of a doubt about the matter,” cried Lord Fotheringay—both men seemed to regard Miss Craven’s acquiescence in the scheme which they had in their minds, as outside the discussion altogether. “Now what on earth did Lady Innisfail mean by asking a girl with such eyes to stay here? A girl with such eyes has no business appearing among people like us who have to settle our mundane affairs to the best advantage. Those eyes are a disturbing influence, Airey. They should never be seen while matters are in an unsettled condition. And Lady Innisfail professes to be Harold’s friend.”
“And so she is,” said Edmund. “But the delight that Lady Innisfail finds in capturing a strange face—especially when that face is beautiful—overcomes all other considerations with her. That is why, although anxious—she was anxious yesterday, though that is not saying she is anxious today—to hear of Harold’s proposing to Miss Craven, yet she is much more anxious to see the effect produced by the appearance of Miss Avon among her guests.”
“And this is a Christian country!” said Lord Fotheringay solemnly, after a pause of considerable duration.
“Nominally,” said Mr. Airey,
“What is society coming to, Airey, when a woman occupying the position of Lady Innisfail, does not hesitate to throw all considerations of friendship to the winds solely for the sake of a momentary sensation?”
Lord Fotheringay was now so solemn that his words and his method of delivering them suggested the earnestness of an evangelist—zeal is always expected from an evangelist, though unbecoming in an ordained clergyman. He held one finger out and raised it and lowered it with the inflections of his voice with the skill of a professional moralist.
He had scarcely spoken before Miss Avon, by the side of the judge and Miss Innisfail, appeared on the terrace.
The judge—he said he had known her father—was beaming on her. Professing to know her father he probably considered sufficient justification for beaming on her.
Lord Fotheringay and his companion watched the girl in silence until she and her companions had descended to the path leading to the cliffs.
“Airey,” said Lord Fotheringay at length. “Airey, that boy of mine must be prevented from making a fool of himself—he must be prevented from making a fool of that girl. I would not like to see such a girl as that—I think you said you noticed her eyes—made a fool of.”
“It would be very sad,” said Edmund. “But what means do you propose to adopt to prevent the increase by two of the many fools already in the world?”
“I mean to marry the girl myself,” cried Lord Fotheringay, rising to his feet—not without some little difficulty, for rheumatism had for years been his greatest enemy.
EDMUND AIREY had the most perfect command of his features under all circumstances. While the members of the Front Opposition Benches were endeavouring to sneer him into their lobby, upon the occasion of a division on some question on which it was rumoured he differed from the Government, he never moved a muscle. The flaunts and gibes may have stung him, but he had never yet given an indication of feeling the sting; so that if Lord Fotheringay looked for any of those twitches about the corners of Mr. Airey’s mouth, which the sudden announcement of his determination would possibly have brought around the mouth of an ordinary man, he must have had little experience of his companion’s powers.
But that Lord Fotheringay felt on the whole greatly flattered by the impassiveness of Edmund Airey’s face after his announcement, Edmund Airey did not for a moment doubt. When a man of fifty-seven gravely announces his intention to another man of marrying a girl of, perhaps, twenty, and with eyes of remarkable lustre, and when the man takes such an announcement as the merest matter of course, the man who makes it has some reason for feeling flattered.
The chances are, however, that he succeeds in proving to his own satisfaction that he has no reason for feeling flattered; for the man of fifty-seven who is fool enough to entertain the notion of marrying a girl of twenty with lustrous eyes, is certainly fool enough to believe that the announcement of his intention in this respect is in no way out of the common.
Thus, when, after a glance concentrated upon the corners of Edmund Airey’s mouth, Lord Fotheringay resumed his seat and began to give serious reasons for taking the step that he had declared himself ready to take—reasons beyond the mere natural desire to prevent Miss Avon from being made a fool of—he gave no indication of feeling in the least flattered by the impassiveness of the face of his companion.
Yes, he explained to Mr. Airey, he had been so badly treated by the world that he had almost made up his mind to retire from the world—the exact words in which he expressed that resolution were “to let the world go to the devil in its own way.”
Now, as the belief was general that Lord Fotheringay’s presence in the world had materially accelerated its speed in the direction which he had indicated, the announcement of his intention to allow it to proceed without his assistance was not absurd.
Yes, he had been badly treated by the world, he said. The world was very wicked. He felt sad when he thought of the vast amount of wickedness there was in the world, and the small amount of it that he had already enjoyed. To be sure, it could not be said that he had quite lived the life of the ideal anchorite: he admitted—and smacked his lips as he did so—that he had now and again had a good time (Mr. Airey did not assume that the word “good” was to be accepted in its Sunday-school sense) but on the whole the result was disappointing.
“As saith the Preacher,” remarked Mr. Airey, when Lord Fotheringay paused and shook his head so that another little scrap of caked powder escaped from the depths of one of the wrinkles of his forehead.
“The Preacher—what Preacher?” he asked.
“The Preacher who cried Vanitas Vanitatum,” said Edmund.
“He had gone on a tour with an Italian opera company,” said Lord Fotheringay, “and he had fallen foul of the basso. Airey, my boy, whatever you do, steer clear of a prima donna with a high soprano. It means thousands—thousands, and a precipitate flight at the last. You needn’t try a gift of paste—the finest productions of the Ormuz Gem Company—‘a Tiara for Thirty Shillings’—you know their advertisement—no, I’ve tried that. It was no use. The real thing she would have—Heavens above! Two thousand pounds for a trinket, and nothing to show for it, but a smashing of supper plates and a hurried flight. Ah, Airey, is it any wonder that I should make up my mind to live a quiet life with—I quite forget who was in my mind when I commenced this interesting conversation?”
“It makes no difference,” said Mr. Airey. “The principle is precisely the same. There is Miss Innisfail looking for someone, I must go to her.”
“A desperately proper girl,” said Lord Fotheringay. “As desperately proper as if she had once been desperately naughty. These proper girls know a vast deal. She scarcely speaks to me. Yes, she must know a lot.”
His remarks were lost upon Mr. Airey, for he had politely hurried to Miss Innisfail and was asking her if he could be of any assistance to her. But when Miss Innisfail replied that she was merely waiting for Brian, the boatman, who should have returned long ago from the other side of the lough, Mr. Airey did not return to Lord Fotheringay.
He had had enough of Lord Fotheringay for one afternoon, and he hoped that Lord Fotheringay would understand so much. He had long ago ceased to be amusing. As an addition to the house-party at the Castle he was unprofitable. He knew that Lady Innisfail was of this opinion, and he was well aware also that Lady Innisfail had not given him more than a general and very vague invitation to the Castle. He had simply come to the Castle in order to avoid the possibly disagreeable consequences of buying some thousands of pounds’ worth of diamonds—perhaps it would be more correct to say, diamonds costing some thousands of pounds, leaving worth out of the question—for a woman with a husband.
Airey knew that the philosophy of Lord Fotheringay was the philosophy of the maker of omelettes. No one has yet solved the problem of how to make omelettes without breaking eggs. Lord Fotheringay had broken a good many eggs in his day, and occasionally the result was that his share of the transaction was not the omelette but the broken shells. Occasionally, too, Edmund Airey was well aware, Lord Fotheringay had suffered more inconvenience than was involved in the mere fact of his being deprived of the comestible. His latest adventure. Airey thought, might be included among such experiences. He had fled to the brink of the ocean in order to avoid the vengeance of the Husband. “Here the pursuer can pursue no more,” was the line that was in Edmund Airey’s mind as he listened to the fragmentary account of the latest contretemps of the rheumatic butterfly.
Yes, he had had quite enough of Lord Fotheringay’s company. The announcement of his intention to marry Miss Avon had not made him more interesting in the eyes of Edmund Airey, though it might have done so in other people’s eyes—for a man who makes himself supremely ridiculous makes himself supremely interesting as well, in certain circles.
The announcement made by Lord Fotheringay had caused him to seem ridiculous, though of course Edmund had made no sign to this effect: had he made any sign he would not have heard the particulars of Lord Fotheringay’s latest fiasco, and he was desirous of learning those particulars. Having become acquainted with them, however, he found that he had had quite enough of his company.
But in the course of the afternoon Mr. Airey perceived that, though in his eyes there was something ridiculous in the notion of Lord Fotheringay’s expression of a determination to marry Beatrice Avon, the idea might not seem quite so ridiculous to other people—Miss Avon’s father, for instance.
In another moment he had come to the conclusion that the idea might not seem altogether absurd to Miss Avon herself.
Young women of twenty—even when they have been endowed by heaven with lustrous eyes (assuming that the lustre of a young woman’s eyes is a gift from heaven, and not acquired to work the purposes of a very different power)—have been known to entertain without repugnance the idea of marrying impecunious peers of fifty-seven; and upon this circumstance Edmund pondered.
Standing on the brink of a cliff at the base of which the great rollers were crouching like huge white-maned lions, Mr. Airey reflected as he had never previously done, upon the debased condition of modern society, in which such incidents are of constant occurrence. But, however deplorable such incidents are, he knew perfectly well that there never had existed a society in the world where they had not been quite as frequent as they are in modern society in England.
Yes, it was quite as likely as not that Lord Fotheringay would be able to carry out the intention which he had announced to his confidant of the moment.
But when Mr. Airey thought of the lustrous eyes of Beatrice Avon, recalling the next moment the rheumatic movements of Lord Fotheringay and the falling of the scrap of caked powder from his forehead, he felt quixotic enough to be equal to the attempt to prevent the realization of Lord Fotheringay’s intention.
It was then that the thought occurred to him—Why should not Harold, who was clearly ready to fall in love with the liquid eyes of Beatrice Avon, ask her to marry him instead of his father?
The result of his consideration of this question was to convince him that such an occurrence as it suggested should be averted at all hazards.
Only the worst enemy that Harold Wynne could have—the worst enemy that the girl could have—would like to see them married.
It would be different if the hot-blooded Italian husband were to pursue the enemy of his household to the brink of the Atlantic cliffs and then push him over the cliffs into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. But the hot-blooded Italian was not yet in sight, and Edmund knew very well that so long as Lord Fotheringay lived, Harold was dependent on him for his daily bread.
If Harold were to marry Miss Avon, it would lie in his father’s power to make him a pauper, or, worse, the professional director with the honorary prefix of “Honourable” to his name, dear to the company promoter.
On the death of Lord Fotheringay Harold would inherit whatever property still remained out of the hands of the mortgagees; but Edmund was well aware of the longevity of that species of butterfly which is susceptible of rheumatic attacks; so that for, perhaps, fifteen years Harold might remain dependent upon the good-will of his father for his daily bread.
It thus appeared to Mr. Airey that the problem of how to frustrate the intentions of Lord Fotheringay, was not an easy one to solve.
He knew the world too well to entertain for a moment the possibility of defeating Lord Fotheringay’s avowed purpose by informing either the girl or her father of the evil reputation of Lord Fotheringay. The evil deeds of a duke have occasionally permitted his wife to obtain a divorce; but they have never prevented him from obtaining another wife.
All this Mr. Edmund Airey knew, having lived in the world and observed the ways of its inhabitants for several years.