THE girl had shown so much adroitness in the management of the little craft previously, he felt—with deep regret—that she would be quite equal to her present emergency. He was mistaken. She had reached the end of her resources in navigation when she had run the boat alongside the landing place. He saw—with great satisfaction—that with only one oar she was helpless.
What should he do?
That was what he asked himself when he saw her dip her remaining oar into the water and paddle a few strokes, making the boat describe an awkward circle and bringing it perilously close to a jagged point of the reef that did duty as a natural breakwater for the mooring place of the boats. He came to the conclusion that if he allowed her to continue that sort of paddling, she would run the boat on the reef, and he would be morally responsible for the disaster and its consequences, whatever they might be. He had never felt more conscientious than at that moment.
He ran down the track to the landing ledge, but before he had reached the latter, the girl had ceased her efforts and was staring at him, her hands still resting on the oar.
He had an uneasy feeling that he was scarcely so picturesquely breathless as she had been, and this consciousness did not tend to make him fluent as he stood upon the rocky shelf not a foot above the ridges of the silver ripples.
He found himself staring at her, just as she was staring at him.
Quite a minute had passed before he found words to ask her if he could be of any help to her.
“I don’t know,” she replied, in a tone very different from that in which she had spoken at the entrance to the cavern. “I don’t really know. One of the oars must have gone overboard while the boat was moored. I scarcely know what I am to do.”
“I’m afraid you’re in a bad way!” said he, shaking his head. The change in the girl’s tone was very amusing to him. She had become quite demure; but previously, demureness had been in the background. “Yes, I’m afraid your case is a very bad one.”
“So bad as that?” she asked.
“Well, perhaps not quite, but still bad enough,” said he. “What do you want to do?”
“To get home as soon as possible,” she replied, without the pause of a second.
Her tone was expressive. It conveyed to him the notion that she had just asked if he thought that she was an idiot. What could she want to do if not to go home?
“In that case,” said he, “I should advise you to take the oar to the sculling place in the centre of the stern. The boat is a stout one and will scull well.”
“But I don’t know how to scull,” said she, in a tone of real distress; “and I don’t think I can begin to learn just now.”
“There’s something in that,” said he. “If I were only aboard I could teach you in a short time.”
“But—”
She had begun her reply without the delay of a second, but she did not get beyond the one word. He felt that she did not need to do so: it was a sentence by itself.
“Yes,” said he, “as you say, I’m not aboard. Shall I get aboard?”
“How could you?” she inquired, brightening up.
“I can swim,” he replied.
She laughed.
“The situation is not so desperate as that,” she cried.
He also laughed.
They both laughed together.
She stopped suddenly and looked up the cliffs to the Banshee’s Cave.
Was she wondering if he had been within hearing when she had been—and not in silence—at the entrance to the cave?
He felt that he had never seen so beautiful a girl. Even making a liberal allowance for that glamour of the moonlight, which he had tried to assure himself was as deceptive as the glamour of love, she was, he felt, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
He crushed down every suggestion that came to him as to the best way of helping her out of her difficulty. It was his opportunity.
Then she turned her eyes from the cliff and looked at him again.
There was something imploring in her look.
“Keep up your heart,” said he. “Whose boat is that, may I ask?”
“It belongs to a man named Brian—Brian something or other—perhaps O’Donal.”
“In that case I think it almost certain that you will find a fishing line in the locker astern—a fishing line and a tin bailer—the line will help you out of the difficulty.”
Before he had quite done speaking she was in the stern sheets, groping with one hand in the little locker.
She brought out, first, a small jar of whiskey, secondly, a small pannikin that served a man’s purpose when he wished to drink the whiskey in unusually small quantities, and was also handy in bailing out the boat, and, thirdly, a fishing line-wound about a square frame.
She held up the last-named so that Harold might see it.
“I thought it would be there,” said he. “Now if you can only cast one end of that line ashore, I will catch it and the boat will be alongside the landing-place in a few minutes. Can you throw?”
She was silent. She examined the hooks on the whale-bone cross-cast.
He laughed again, for he perceived that she was reluctant to boast of the possession of a skill which was denied to all womankind.
“I’ll explain to you what you must do,” he said. “Cut away the cast of hooks.”
“But I have no knife.”
“Then I’ll throw mine into the bottom of your boat. Look out.”
Being a man, he was able to make the knife alight within reasonable distance of the spot at which he aimed. He saw her face brighten as she picked up the implement and, opening it, quickly cut away the cast of hooks.
“Now make fast the leaden sinker to the end of the fishing line, unwind it all from the frame, and then whirl the weight round and sling it ashore—anywhere ashore.”
She followed his instructions implicitly, and the leaden weight fled through the air, with the sound of a shell from a mortar.
“Well thrown!” he cried, as it soared above his head; and it was well thrown—so well that it carried overboard every inch of the line and the frame to which it was attached.
“How stupid of me!” she said.
“Of me, you mean,” said he. “I should have told you to make it fast. However, no harm is done. I’ll recover the weight and send it back to you.”
He had no trouble in effecting his purpose. He threw the weight as gently as possible into the bow of the boat, she picked it up, and the line was in her hands as he took in the slack and hauled the boat alongside the shelf of rock.
It cannot have escaped notice that the system of hauling which he adopted had the result of bringing their hands together. They scarcely touched, however.
“Thank you,” said she, with profound coldness, when the boat was alongside.
“Your case was not so desperate, after all,” he remarked, with just a trifle less frigidity in his tone, though he now knew that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He had talked of the glamour of moonlight. How could he have been so ridiculous?
“No, my case was not so very desperate,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
Did she mean to suggest that he should now walk away?
“I can’t go, you know, until I am satisfied that your contretemps is at an end,” said he. “My name is Wynne—Harold Wynne. I am a guest of Lord Innisfail’s. I dare say you know him.”
“No,” she replied. “I know nobody.”
“Nobody?”
“Nobody here. Of course I daily hear something about Lord Innisfail and his guests.”
“You know Brian—he is somebody—the historian of the region. Did you ever hear the story of the Banshee?”
She looked at him, but he flattered himself that his face told her nothing of what she seemed anxious to know.
“Yes,” she said, after a pause. “I do believe that I heard the story of the Banshee—a princess, was she not—a sort of princess—an Irish princess?”
“Strictly Irish. It is said that the cry of the White Lady is sometimes heard even on these nights among the cliffs down which the Princess flung herself.”
“Really?” said she, turning her eyes to the sea. “How strange!”
“Strange? well—perhaps. But Brian declares that he has heard the cry with his own ears. I have a friend who says, very coarsely, that if lies were landed property Brian would be the largest holder of real estate in the world.”
“Your friend does not understand Brian.” There was more than a trace of indignation in her voice. “Brian has imagination—so have all the people about here. I must get home as soon as possible. I thank you very much for your trouble. Goodnight.”
“I have had no trouble. Good-night.”
He took off his cap, and moved away—to the extent of a single step. She was still standing in the boat.
“By the way,” he said, as if the thought had just occurred to him; “do you intend going overland?”
The glamour of the moonlight failed to conceal the troubled look that came to her eyes. He regained the step that he had taken away from her, and remarked, “If you will be good enough to allow me, I will scull you with the one oar to any part of the coast that you may wish to reach. It would be a pleasure to me. I have nothing whatever to do. As a matter of fact, I don’t see that you have any choice in the matter.”
“I have not,” she said gravely. “I was a fool—such a fool! But—the story of the Princess—”
“Pray don’t make any confession to me,” said he. “If I had not heard the story of the Princess, should I be here either?”
“My name,” said she, “is Beatrice Avon. My father’s name you may have heard—most people have heard his name, though I’m afraid that not so many have read his books.”
“But I have met your father,” said he. “If he is Julius Anthony Avon, I met him some years ago. He breakfasted with my tutor at Oxford. I have read all his hooks.”
“Oh, come into the boat,” she cried with a laugh. “I feel that we have been introduced.”
“And so we have,” said he, stepping upon the gunwale so as to push off the boat. “Now, where is your best landing place?”
She pointed out to him a white cottage at the entrance to a glen on the opposite coast of the lough, just below the ruins—they could be seen by the imaginative eye—of the Castle of Carrigorm. The cottage was glistening in the moonlight.
“That is where we have been living—my father and I—for the past month,” said she. “He is engaged on a new work—a History of Irish Patriotism, and he has begun by compiling a biographical dictionary of Irish Informers. He is making capital progress with it. He has already got to the end of the seventh volume and he has very nearly reached the letter C—oh, yes, he is making rapid progress.”
“But why is he at this place? Is he working up the Irish legends as well?”
“It seems that the French landed here some time or other, and that was the beginning of a new era of rebellions. My father is dealing with the period, and means to have his topography strictly accurate.”
“Yes,” said Harold, “if he carefully avoids everything that he is told in Ireland his book may tend to accuracy.”
A BOAT being urged onwards—not very rapidly—by a single oar resting in a hollow in the centre of the stern, and worked from side to side by a man in evening dress, is not a sight of daily occurrence. This may have suggested itself to the girl who was seated on the midship beam; but if she was inclined to laugh, she succeeded in controlling her impulses.
He found that he was more adroit at the science of marine propulsion than he had fancied he was. The boat was making quite too rapid progress for his desires, across the lough.
He asked the girl if she did not think it well that she should become acquainted with at least the scientific principle which formed the basis of the marine propeller. It was extremely unlikely that such an emergency as that which had lately arisen should ever again make a demand upon her resources, but if such were ever to present itself, it might be well for her to be armed to overcome it.
Yes, she said, it was extremely unlikely that she should ever again be so foolish, and she hoped that her father would not be uneasy at her failure to return at the hour at which she had told him to expect her.
He stopped rocking the oar from side to side in order to assure her that she could not possibly be delayed more than a quarter of an hour through the loss of the oar.
She said that she was very glad, and that she really thought that the boat was making more rapid progress with his one oar than it had done in the opposite direction with her two oars.
He began to perceive that his opportunities of making her acquainted with the science of the screw propeller were dwindling. He faced the oar boldly, however, and he felt that he had at least succeeded in showing her how effective was the application of a scientific law to the achievement of his end—assuming that that end was the driving of the boat through the waters.
He was not a fool. He knew very well that there is nothing which so appeals to the interest of a woman as seeing a man do something that she cannot do.
When, after five minutes’ work, he turned his head to steer the boat, he found that she was watching him.
She had previously been watching the white glistening cottage, with the light in one window only.
The result of his observation was extremely satisfactory to him. He resumed his toil without a word.
And this was how it happened that the boat made so excellent a passage across the lough.
It was not until the keel grated upon the sand that the girl spoke. She made a splendid leap from the bows, and, turning, asked him if he would care to pay a visit to her father.
He replied that he feared that he might jeopardize the biography of some interesting informer whose name might occur at the close of the letter B. He hoped that he would be allowed to borrow the boat for his return to the cliffs, and to row it back the next day to where it was at the moment he was speaking.
His earnest sculling of the boat had not made all thought for the morrow impracticable. He had been reflecting through the silence, how he might make the chance of meeting once more this girl whose face he had seen for the first time half an hour before.
She had already given him an absurd amount of trouble, she said. The boat was one that she had borrowed from Brian, and Brian could easily row it across next morning.
But he happened to know that Brian was to be in attendance on Mr. Durdan all the next day. Mr. Durdan had come to the West solely for the purpose of studying the Irish question on the spot. He had, consequently, spent all his time, deep-sea fishing.
“So you perceive that there’s nothing for it but for me to bring back the boat, Miss Avon,” said he.
“You do it so well,” she said, with a tone of enthusiasm in her voice. “I never admired anything so much—your sculling, I mean. And perhaps I may learn something about—was it the scientific principle that you were kind enough to offer to teach me?”
“The scientific principle,” said he, with an uneasy feeling that the girl had seen through his artifice to prolong the crossing of the lough. “Yes, you certainly should know all about the scientific principle.”
“I feel so, indeed. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” said he, preparing to push the boat off the sand where it had grounded. “Goodnight. By the way, it was only when we were out with Brian in the afternoon that he told us the story of the Princess and her lover. He added that the cry of the White Lady would probably be heard when night came.”
“Perhaps you may hear it yet,” said she. “Goodnight.”
She had run up the sandy beach, before he had pushed off the boat, and she never looked round.
He stood with one foot on the gunwale of the boat in act to push into deep water, thinking that perhaps she might at the last moment look round.
She did not.
He caught another glimpse of her beyond the furze that crowned a ridge of rocks. But she had her face steadfastly set toward the white cottage.
He threw all his weight upon the oar which he was using as a pole, and out the boat shot into the deep water.
“Great heavens!” said Edmund Airey. “Where have you been for the past couple of hours?”
“Where?” repeated Miss Craven in a tone of voice that should only be assumed when the eyes, of the speaker are sparkling. But Miss Craven’s eyes were not sparkling. Their strong point was not in that direction. “I’m afraid you must give an account of yourself, Mr. Wynne,” she continued. She was standing by the side of Edmund Airey, within the embrace of the mighty antlers of the ancient elk in the hall. The sound of dance music was in the air, and Miss Craven’s face was flushed.
“To give an account of myself would be to place myself on a level of dulness with the autobiographers whose reminiscences we yawn over.”
“Then give us a chance of yawning,” cried Miss Craven.
“You do not need one,” said he. “Have you not been for some time by the side of a Member of Parliament?”
“He has been over the cliffs,” suggested the Member of Parliament. He was looking at Harold’s shoes, which bore tokens of having been ill-treated beyond the usual ill-treatment of shoes with bows of ribbon above the toes.
“Yes,” said Harold. “Over the cliffs.”
“At the Banshee’s Cave, I’m certain,” said Miss Craven.
“Yes, at the Banshee’s Cave.”
“How lovely! And you saw the White Lady?” she continued.
“Yes, I saw the White Lady.”
“And you heard her cry at the entrance to the cave?”
“Yes, I heard her cry at the entrance to the cave.”
“Nonsense!” said she.
“Utter nonsense!” said he. “I must ask Lady Innisfail to dance.”
He crossed the hall to where Lady Innisfail was seated. She was fanning herself and making sparkling replies to the inanities of Mr. Durdan, who stood beside her. She had been engaged in every dance, Harold knew, from the extra gravity of her daughter.
“What does he mean?” Miss Craven asked of Edmund Airey in a low—almost an anxious, tone.
“Mean? Why, to dance with Lady Innisfail. He is a man of determination.”
“What does he mean by that nonsense about the Banshee’s Cave?”
“Is it nonsense?”
“Of course it is. Does anyone suppose that the legend of the White Lady is anything but nonsense? Didn’t you ridicule it at dinner?”
“At dinner; oh, yes: but then you must remember that no one is altogether discreet at dinner. That cold entrée—the Russian salad—”
“A good many people are discreet neither at dinner nor after it.”
“Our friend Harold, for instance? Oh, I have every confidence in him. I know his mood. I have experienced it myself. I, too, have stood in a sculpturesque attitude and attire, on a rock overhanging a deep sea, and I have been at the point of dressing again without taking the plunge that I meant to take.”
“You mean that he—that he—oh, I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean that if he had been so fortunate as to come upon you suddenly at the Banshee’s Cave or wherever he was to-night, he would have—well, he would have taken the plunge.”
He saw the girl’s face become slightly roseate in spite of the fact of her being the most self-controlled person whom he had ever met. He perceived that she appreciated his meaning to a shade.
He liked that. A man who is gifted with the power of expressing his ideas in various shades, likes to feel that his power is appreciated. He knew that there are some people who fancy that every question is susceptible of being answered by yea or nay. He hated such people.
“The plunge?” said Miss Craven, with an ingenuousness that confirmed his high estimate of her powers of appreciation. “The plunge? But the Banshee’s Cave is a hundred feet above the water.”
“But men have taken headers—”
“They have,” said she, “and therefore we should finish our waltz.”
They did finish their waltz.
MR. DURDAN was explaining something—he usually was explaining something. When he had been a member of the late Government his process of explaining something was generally regarded as a fine effort at mystification. In private his explanations were sometimes intelligible. As Harold entered the room where a straggling breakfast was proceeding—everything except dinner had a tendency to be straggling at Castle Innisfail—Mr. Dur dan was explaining how Brian had been bewildered.
It was a profitable theme, especially for a man who fondly believed that he had the power of reproducing what he imagined to be the Irish brogue of the boatman.
Harold gathered that Mr. Durdan had already had a couple of hours of deep-sea fishing in the boat with Brian—the servants were all the morning carrying into the dining-room plates of fish of his catching (audibly sneered at by the fly-fishers, who considered their supreme failures superior to the hugest successes of the deep-sea fishers).
But the fishing was not to the point. What Mr. Durdan believed to be very much to the point were the “begorras,” the “acushlas,” the “arrahs” which he tried to make his auditors believe the boatman had uttered in telling him how he had been awakened early in the night by hearing the cry of the Banshee.
Every phrase supposed to have been employed by the boatman was reproduced by the narrator; and his auditors glanced meaningly at one another. It would have required a great deal of convincing to make them fancy for a moment that the language of Brian consisted of an imaginary Irish exclamation preceding a purely Cockney—occasionally Yorkshire—idiom. But the narrator continued his story, and seemed convinced that his voice was an exact reproduction of Brian’s brogue.
Harold thought that he would try a little of something that was not fish—he scarcely minded what he had, provided it was not fish, he told the servant. And as there was apparently some little-difficulty in procuring such a comestible, Harold drank some coffee and listened to Mr. Durdan’s story—he recommenced it for everyone who entered the breakfast-room.
Yes, Brian had distinctly heard the cry of the Banshee, he said; but a greater marvel had happened, for he found one of his boats that had been made fast on the opposite shore of the lough in the early part of the night, moored at the landing-ledge at the base of the cliffs beneath the Banshee’s Cave. By the aid of many a gratuitous “begorra,” Mr. Durdan indicated the condition of perplexity in which the boatman had been all the time he was baiting the lines. He explained that the man had attributed to “herself”—meaning, of course, the White Lady—the removal of the boat from the one side of the lough to the other. It was plain that the ghost of the Princess was a good oarswoman, too, for a single paddle only was found in the boat. It was so like a ghost, he had confided to Mr. Durdan, to make a cruise in a way that was contrary—the accent on the second syllable—to nature.
“He has put another oar aboard and is now rowing the boat back to its original quarters,” said Mr. Durdan, in conclusion. “But he declares that, be the Powers!”—here the narrator assumed once more the hybrid brogue—“if the boat was meddled with by ‘herself’ again he would call the priest to bless the craft, and where would ‘herself’ be then?”
“Where indeed?” said Lord Innisfail.
Harold said nothing. He was aware that Edmund was looking at him intently. Did he suspect anything, Harold wondered.
He gave no indication of being more interested in the story than anyone present, and no one present seemed struck with it—no one, except perhaps, Miss Craven, who had entered the room late, and was thus fortunate enough to obtain the general drift of what Mr. Durdan was talking about, without having her attention diverted by his loving repetition of the phrases of local colour.
Miss Craven heard the story, laughed, glanced at her plate, and remarked with some slyness that Mr. Durdan was clearly making strides in his acquaintance with the Irish question. She then glanced—confidentially—at Edmund Airey, and finally—rather less confidentially—at Harold.
He was eating of that which was not fish, and giving a good deal of attention to it.
Miss Craven thought he was giving quite too much attention to it. She suspected that he knew more about the boat incident than he cared to express, or why should he be giving so much attention to his plate?
As for Harold himself, he was feeling that it would be something of a gratification to him if a fatal accident were to happen to Brian.
He inwardly called him a meddlesome fool. Why should he take it upon him to row the boat across the lough, when he, Harold, had been looking forward during the sleepless hours of the night, to that exercise? When he had awakened from an early morning slumber, it was with the joyous feeling that nothing could deprive him of that row across the lough.
And yet he had been deprived of it, therefore he felt some regret that, the morning being a calm one, Brian’s chances of disaster when crossing the lough were insignificant.
All the time that the judge was explaining in that lucid style which was the envy of his brethren on the Bench, how impossible it would be for the Son of Porcupine to purge himself of the contempt which was heaped upon him owing to his unseemly behaviour at a recent race meeting—the case of the son of so excellent a father as Porcupine turning out badly was jeopardizing the future of Evolution as a doctrine—Harold was trying to devise some plan that should make him independent of the interference of the boatman. He did not insist on the plan being legitimate or even reasonable; all that he felt was that he must cross the lough.
He thought of the girl whom he had seen in that atmosphere of moonlight; and somehow he came to think of her as responsible for her exquisite surroundings. There was nothing commonplace about her—that was what he felt most strongly as he noticed the excellent appetites of the young women around him. Even Miss Stafford, who hoped to be accepted as an Intellect embodied in a mere film of flesh—she went to the extreme length of cultivating a Brow—tickled her trout with the point of her fork much less tenderly than the fisherman who told her the story—with an impromptu bravura passage or two—of its capture, had done.
But the girl whom he had seen in the moonlight—whom he was yearning to see in the sunlight—was as refined as a star. “As refined as a star,” he actually murmured, when he found himself with an unlighted cigar between his fingers on that part of the terrace which afforded a fine view of the lough—the narrow part as well—his eyes were directed to the narrow part. “As refined as a star—a—”
He turned himself round with a jerk. “A star?”
His father’s letter was still in his pocket. It contained in the course of its operatic clauses some references to a Star—a Star, who, alas! was not refined—who, on the contrary, was expensive.
He struck a match very viciously and lit his cigar.
Miss Craven had just appeared on the terrace.
He dropped his still flaming match on the hard gravel walk and put his foot upon it.
“A star!”
He was very vicious.
“She is not a particularly good talker, but she is a most fascinating listener,” said Edmund Airey, who strolled up.
“I have noticed so much—when you have been the talker,” said Harold. “It is only to the brilliant talker that the fascinating listener appeals. By the way, how does ‘fascinated listener’ sound as a phrase? Haven’t I read somewhere that the speeches of an eminent politician were modelled on the principle of catching birds by night? You flash a lamp upon them and they may be captured by the score. The speeches were compared to the lantern and the public to the birds.”
“Gulls,” said Edmund. “My dear Harold, I did not come out here to exchange opinions with you on the vexed question of vote-catching or gulls—it will be time enough to do so when you have found a constituency.”
“Quite. And meantime I am to think of Miss Craven as a fascinating listener? That’s what you have come to impress upon me.”
“I mean that you should give yourself a fair chance of becoming acquainted with her powers as a listener—I mean that you should talk to her on an interesting topic.”
“Would to heaven that I had your capacity of being interesting on all topics.”
“The dullest man on earth when talking to a woman on love as a topic, is infinitely more interesting to her than the most brilliant man when talking to her on any other topic.”
“You suggest a perilous way to the dull man of becoming momentarily interesting.”
“Of course I know the phrase which, in spite of being the composition of a French philosopher, is not altogether devoid of truth—yes, ‘Qui parle d’amour fait l’amour’’.”
“Only that love is born, not made.”
“Great heavens! have you learned that—that, with your father’s letter next your heart?”
Harold laughed.
“Do you fancy that I have forgotten your conversation in the boat yesterday?” said he. “Heaven on one side and the Lord Chancellor on the other.”
“And you have come to the conclusion that you are on the side of heaven? You are in a perilous way.”
“Your logic is a trifle shaky, friend. Besides, you have no right to assume that I am on the side of heaven.”
“There is a suggestion of indignation in your voice that gives me hope that you are not in so evil a case as I may have suspected. Do you think that another afternoon in the boat—”
“Would make me on the side of the Lord Chancellor? I doubt it. But that is not equivalent to saying that I doubt the excellence of your advice.”
“Yesterday afternoon I flattered myself that I had given you such advice as commended itself to you, and yet now you tell me that love is born, not made. The man who believes that is past being advised. It is, I say, the end of wisdom. What has happened since yesterday afternoon?”
“Nothing has happened to shake my confidence in the soundness of your advice,” said Harold, but not until a pause had occurred—a pause of sufficient duration to tell his observant friend that something had happened.
“If nothing has happened—Miss Craven is going to sketch the Round Tower at noon,” said Edmund—the Round Tower was some distance through the romantic Pass of Lamdhu.
“The Round Tower will not suffer; Miss Craven is not one of the landscape libellers,” remarked Harold.
Just then Miss Innisfail hurried up with a face lined with anxiety.
Miss Innisfail was the sort of girl who always, says, “It is I.”
“Oh, Mr. Airey,” she cried, “I have come to entreat of you to do your best to dissuade mamma from her wild notion—the wildest she has ever had. You may have some restraining influence upon her. She is trying to get up an Irish jig in the hall after dinner—she has set her heart on it.”
“I can promise you that if Lady Innisfail asks me to be one of the performers I shall decline,” said Edmund.
“Oh, she has set her heart on bringing native dancers for the purpose,” cried the girl.
“That sounds serious,” said Edmund. “Native dances are usually very terrible visitations. I saw one at Samoa.”
“I knew it—yes, I suspected as much,” murmured the girl, shaking her head. “Oh, we must put a stop to it. You will help me, Mr. Airey?”
“I am always on the side of law and order,” said Mr. Airey. “A mother is a great responsibility, Miss Innisfail.”
Miss Innisfail smiled sadly, shook her head again, and fled to find another supporter against the latest frivolity of her mother.
When Edmund turned about from watching her, he saw that his friend Harold Wynne had gone off with some of the yachtsmen—for every day a yachting party as well as deep-sea-fishing, and salmon-fishing parties—shooting parties and even archæological parties were in the habit of setting-out from Castle Innisfail.
Was it possible that Harold intended spending the day aboard the cutter, Edmund asked himself.
Harold’s mood of the previous evening had been quite intelligible to him—he had confessed to Miss Craven that he understood and even sympathized with him. He was the man who was putting off the plunge as long as possible, he felt.
But he knew that that attitude, if prolonged, not only becomes ridiculous, but positively verges on the indecent. It is one thing to pause for a minute on the brink of the deep water, and quite another to remain shivering on the rock for half a day.
Harold Wynne wanted money in order to realize a legitimate ambition. But it so happened that he could not obtain that money unless by marrying Miss Craven—that was the situation of the moment. But instead of asking Miss Craven if she would have the goodness to marry him, he was wandering about the coast in an aimless way.
Lady Innisfail was the most finished artist in matchmaking that Edmund had ever met. So finished an artist was she that no one had ever ventured to suggest that she was a match-maker. As a matter of fact, her reputation lay in just the opposite direction. She was generally looked upon as a marrer of matches. This was how she had achieved some of her most brilliant successes. She was herself so fascinating that she attracted the nicest men to her side; but, somehow, instead of making love to her as they meant to do, they found themselves making love to the nice girls with whom she surrounded herself. When running upon the love-making track with her, she switched them on, so to speak, to the nice eligible girls, and they became engaged before they quite knew what had happened.
This was her art, Edmund knew, and he appreciated it as it deserved.
She appreciated him as he deserved, he also acknowledged; for she had never tried to switch him on to any of her girls. By never making love to her he had proved himself to be no fit subject for the exercise of her art.
If a man truly loves a woman he will marry anyone whom she asks him to marry.
This, he knew, was the precept that Lady Innisfail inculcated upon the young men—they were mostly very young men—who assured her that they adored her. It rarely failed to bring them to their senses, she had admitted to Edmund in the course of a confidential lapse.
By bringing them to their senses she meant inducing them to ask the right girls to marry them.
Edmund felt that it was rather a pity that his friend Harold had never adored Lady Innisfail. Harold had always liked her too well to make love to her. This was rather a pity, Edmund felt. It practically disarmed Lady Innisfail, otherwise she would have taken care that he made straightforward love to Miss Craven.
As for Harold, he strolled off with the yachtsmen, giving them to understand that he intended sailing with them. The cutter was at her moorings in the lough about a mile from the Castle, and there was a narrow natural dock between the cliffs into which the dingey ran to carry the party out to the yacht.
It was at this point that Harold separated himself from the yachtsmen—not without some mutterings on their part and the delivery of a few reproaches with a fresh maritime flavour about them.
“What was he up to at all?” they asked of one another.
He could scarcely have told these earnest inquirers what he was up to. But his mood would have been quite intelligible to them had they known that he had, within the past half hour made up his mind to let nothing interfere with his asking Helen Craven if she would be good enough to marry him.