A Gray Eye or So. In Three Volumes—Volume I

CHAPTER XV.—ON THE SHRIEK. CHAPTER XV.—ON THE SHRIEK. I N a space of time that was very brief, owing to the resolution with which Lady Innisfail declined to accept the suggestion of short cuts by Brian, the whole party found themselves standing breathless at the beginning of the line of cliffs. A mist saturated with moonlight had drifted into the lough from the Atlantic. It billowed below their eyes along the surface of the water, and crawled along the seared faces of the cliffs, but no cold fingers of the many-fingered mist clasped the higher ridges. The sound of the crashing of the unseen waves about the bases of the cliffs filled the air, but there was no other sound. “Impostor!” said Edmund Airy, turning upon Brian. “You heard no White Lady to-night. You have jeopardized our physical and your spiritual health by your falsehood.” “You shall get no half sovereign from me,” said Lady Innisfail. “Is it me that’s accountable for her coming and going?” cried Brian, with as much indignation as he could afford. Even an Irishman cannot afford the luxury of being indignant with people who are in the habit of paying him well, and an Irishman is ready to sacrifice much to sentiment. “It’s glad we should all be this night not to hear the voice of herself.” Lady Innisfail looked at him. She could afford to be indignant, and she meant to express her indignation; but when it came to the point she found that it was too profound to be susceptible of expression. “Oh, come away,” she said, after looking severely at Brian for nearly a minute. “Dear Lady Innisfail,” said Mr. Durdan, “I know that you feel indignant, fancying that we have been disappointed. Pray do not let such an idea have weight with you for a moment.” “Oh, no, no,” said Miss Stafford, who liked speaking in public quite as well as Mr. Durdan. “Oh, no, no; you have done your best, dear Lady Innisfail. The dance was lovely; and though, of course, we should have liked to hear a native bard or two, as well as the Banshee—” “Yet bards and Banshees we know to be beyond human control,” said Mr. Airey. “We know that if it rested with you, we should hear the Banshee every night,” said Mr. Durdan. “Yes, we all know your kindness of heart, dear Lady Innisfail,” resumed Miss Stafford. “Indeed you should hear it, and the bard as well,” cried Lady Innisfail. “But as Mr. Airey says—and he knows all about bard and Banshees and such like things Great heaven! We are not disappointed after all, thank heaven!” Lady Innisfail’s exclamation was uttered after there floated to the cliffs where she and her friends were standing, from the rolling white mist that lay below, the sound of a long wail. It was repeated, only fainter, when she had uttered her thanksgiving, and it was followed by a more robust shout. “Isn’t it lovely?” whispered Lady Innisfail. “I don’t like it,” said Miss Stafford, with a shudder. “Let us go away—oh, let us go away at once.” Miss Stafford liked simulated horrors only. The uncanny in verse was dear to her; but when, for the first time, she was brought face to face with what would have formed the subject of a thrilling romance with a suggestion of the supernatural, she shuddered. “Hush,” said Lady Innisfail; “if we remain quiet we may hear it again.” “I don’t want to hear it again,” cried Miss Stafford. “Look at the man. He knows all about it. He is one of the natives.” She pointed to Brian, who was on his knees on the rock muttering petitions for the protection of all the party. He knew, however, that his half sovereign was safe, whatever might happen. Miss Stafford’s remark was reasonable. Brian should know all about the Banshee and its potentialities of mischief. “Get up, you fool!” said Edmund Airey, catching the native by the shoulder. “Don’t you know as well as I do that a boat with someone aboard is adrift in the mist?” “Oh, I know that you don’t believe in anything.” said Brian. “I believe in your unlimited laziness and superstition,” said Edmund. “I’m very sorry, my dear Lady Innisfail, to interfere with your entertainment, but it’s perfectly clear to me that someone is in distress at the foot of the cliffs.” “How can you be so horrid—so commonplace?” said Lady Innisfail. “He is one of the modern iconoclasts,” said another of the group. “He would fling down our most cherished beliefs. He told me that he considered Madame Blavatsky a swindler.” “Dear Mr. Airey,” said Miss Stafford, who was becoming less timid as the wail from the sea had not been repeated. “Dear Mr. Airey, let us entreat of you to leave us our Banshee whatever you may take from us.” “There are some things in heaven and earth that refuse to be governed by a phrase,” sneered Mr. Durdan. “Mules and the members of the Opposition are among them,” said Edmund, preparing to descend the cliffs by the zig-zag track. He had scarcely disappeared in the mist when there was a shriek from Miss Stafford, and pointing down the track with a gesture, which for expressiveness, she had never surpassed in the most powerful of her recitations, she flung herself into Lady Innisfail’s arms. “Great heavens!” cried Lady Innisfail. “It is the White Lady herself’!” “We’re all lost, and the half sovereign’s nothing here or there,” said Brian, in a tone of complete resignation. Out of the mist there seemed to float a white figure of a girl. She stood for some moments with the faint mist around her, and while the group on the cliff watched her—some of them found it necessary to cling together—another white figure floated through the mist to the side of the first, and then came another figure—that of a man—only he did not float. “I wish you would not cling quite so close to me, my dear; I can’t see anything of what’s going on,” said Lady Innisfail to Miss Stafford, whose head was certainly an inconvenience to Lady Innisfail. With a sudden, determined movement she shifted the head from her bosom to her shoulder, and the instant that this feat was accomplished she cried out, “Helen Craven!” “Helen Craven?” said Miss Stafford, recovering the use of her head in a moment. “Yes, it’s Helen Craven or her ghost that’s standing there,” said Lady Innisfail. “And Harold Wynne is with her. Are you there, Wynne?” sang out Mr. Durdan. “Hallo?” came the voice of Harold from below. “Who is there?” “Why, we’re all here,” cried Edmund, emerging from the mist at his side. “How on earth did you get here?—and Miss Craven—and—he looked at the third figure—he had never seen the third figure before. “Oh, it’s a long story,” laughed Harold. “Will you give a hand to Miss Craven?” Mr. Airey said it would please him greatly to do so, and by his kindly aid Miss Craven was, in the course of a few minutes, placed by the side of Lady Innisfail. She took the place just vacated by Miss Stafford on Lady Innisfail’s bosom, and was even more embarrassing to Lady Innisfail than the other had been. Helen Craven was heavier, to start with. But it was rather by reason of her earnest desire to see the strange face, that Lady Innisfail found Helen’s head greatly in her way. “Lady Innisfail, when Miss Craven is quite finished with you, I shall present to you Miss Avon,” said Harold. “I should be delighted,” said Lady Innisfail. “Dearest Helen, can you not spare me for a moment?” Helen raised her head. It was then that everyone perceived how great was the devastation done by the mist to the graceful little curled fringes of her forehead. Her hair was lank, showing that she had as massive a brow as Miss Stafford’s, if she wished to display it. “It is a great pleasure to me to meet you, Miss Avon; I’m sure that I have often heard of you from Mr. Wynne and—oh, yes, many other people,” said Lady Innisfail. “But just now—well, you can understand that we are all bewildered.” “Yes, we are all bewildered,” said Miss Avon. “You see, we heard the cry of the White Lady—” “Of course,” said Harold; “we heard it too. The White Lady was Miss Craven. She was in one of the boats, and the mist coming on so suddenly, she could not find her way back to the landing place. Luckily we were able to take her boat in tow before it got knocked to pieces. I hope Miss Craven did not over-exert herself.” “I hope not,” said Lady Innisfail. “What on earth induced you to go out in a boat alone, Helen—and suffering from so severe a headache into the bargain?” “I felt confident that the cool air would do me good,” said Miss Craven. somewhat dolefully. Lady Innisfail looked at her in silence for some moments, then she laughed. No one else seemed to perceive any reason for laughter. Lady Innisfail then turned her eyes upon Miss Avon. The result of her observation was precisely the same as the result of Harold’s first sight of that face had been. Lady Innisfail felt that she had never seen so beautiful a girl. Then Lady Innisfail laughed again. Finally she looked at Harold and laughed for the third time. The space of a minute nearly was occupied by her observations and her laughter. “I think that on the whole we should hasten on to the Castle,” said she at length. “Miss Craven is pretty certain to be fatigued—we are, at any rate. Of course you will come with us, Miss Avon.” The group on the cliff ceased to be a group when she had spoken; but Miss Avon did not move with the others. Harold also remained by her side. “I don’t know what I should do,” said Miss Avon. “The boat is at the foot of the cliff.” “It would be impossible for you to find your course so long as the mist continues,” said Harold. “Miss Avon and her father—he is an old friend of mine—we breakfasted together at my college—are living in the White House—you may have heard its name—on the opposite shore—only a mile by sea, but six by land,” he added, turning to Lady Innisfail. “Returning to-night is out of the question,” said Lady Innisfail. “You must come with us to the Castle for to-night. I shall explain all to your father to-morrow, if any explanation is needed.” Miss Avon shook her head, and murmured a recognition of Lady Innisfail’s kindness. “There is Brian,” said Harold. “He will confront your father in the morning with the whole story.” “Yes, with the whole story,” said Lady Innisfail, with an amusing emphasis on the words. “I already owe Brian half a sovereign.” “Oh, Brian will carry the message all for love,” cried the girl. Lady Innisfail did her best to imitate the captivating freshness of the girl’s words. “All for love—all for love!” she cried. Harold smiled. He remembered having had brought under his notice a toy nightingale that imitated the song of the nightingale so closely that the Jew dealer, who wanted to sell the thing, declared that no one on earth could tell the difference between the two. The volubility of Brian in declaring that he would do anything out of love for Miss Avon was amazing. He went down the cliff face to bring the boats round to the regular moorings, promising to be at the Castle in half an hour to receive Miss Avon’s letter to be put into her father’s hand at his hour of rising. By the time Miss Avon and Harold had walked to the Castle with Lady Innisfail, they had acquainted her with a few of the incidents of the evening—how they also had been caught by the mist while in their boat, and had with considerable trouble succeeded in reaching the craft in which Miss Craven was helplessly drifting. They had heard Miss Craven’s cry for help, they said, and Harold had replied to it. But still they had some trouble picking up her boat. Lady Innisfail heard all the story, and ventured to assert that all was well that ended well. “And this is the end,” she cried, as she pointed to the shining hall seen through the open doors. “Yes, this is the end of all—a pleasant end to the story,” said the girl. Harold followed them as they entered. He wondered if this was the end of the story, or only the beginning. CHAPTER XVI.—ON THE VALUE OF A BAD CHARACTER. I T was said by some people that the judge, during his vacation, had solved the problem set by the philosopher to his horse. He had learned to live on a straw a day, only there was something perpetually at the end of his straw—something with a preposterous American name in a tumbler to match. He had the tumbler and the straw on a small table by his side while he watched, with great unsteadiness, the strokes of the billiard players. From an hour after dinner he was in a condition of perpetual dozing. This was his condition also from an hour after the opening of a case in court, which required the closest attention to enable even the most delicately appreciative mind to grasp even its simplest elements. He had, he said, been the most widely awake of counsel for thirty years, so that he rather thought he was entitled to a few years dozing as a judge. Other people—they were his admirers—said that his dozing represented an alertness far beyond that of the most conscientiously wakeful and watchful of the judicial establishment in England. It is easy to resemble Homer—in nodding—and in this special Homeric quality the judge excelled; but it was generally understood that it would not be wise to count upon his nodding himself into a condition of unobservance. He had already delivered judgment on the character of the fine cannons of one of the players in the hall, and upon the hazards of the other. He had declined to mark the game, however, and he had thereby shown his knowledge of human nature. There had already been four disputes as to the accuracy of the marking. (It was being done by a younger man). “How can a man expect to make his favourite break after some hours on a diabolical Irish jaunting car?” one of the players was asking, as he bent over the table. The words were uttered at the moment of Harold’s entrance, close behind Lady Innisfail and Miss Avon. Hearing the words he stood motionless before he had taken half-a-dozen steps into the hall. Lady Innisfail also stopped at the same instant, and looked over her shoulder at Harold. Through the silence there came the little click of the billiard balls. The speaker gave the instinctive twist of the practised billiard player toward the pocket that he wished the ball to approach. Then he took a breath and straightened himself in a way that would have made any close observer aware of the fact that he was no longer a young man. There was, however, more than a suggestion of juvenility in his manner of greeting Lady Innisfail. He was as effusive as is consistent with the modern spirit of indifference to the claims of hostesses and all other persons. He was not so effusive when he turned to Harold; but that was only to be expected, because Harold was his son. “No, my boy,” said Lord Fotheringay, “I didn’t fancy that you would expect to see me here to-night—I feel surprised to find myself here. It seems like a dream to me—a charming dream-vista with Lady Innisfail at the end of the vista. Innisfail always ruins his chances of winning a game by attempting a screw back into the pocket. He leaves everything on. You’ll see what my game is now.” He chalked his cue and bent over the table once more. Harold watched him make the stroke. “You’ll see what my game is,” said Lord Fotheringay, as he settled himself down to a long break. Harold questioned it greatly. His father’s games were rarely transparent. “What on earth can have brought him?—oh, he takes one’s breath away,” whispered Lady Innisfail to Harold, with a pretty fair imitation of a smile lingering about some parts of her face. Harold shook his head. There was not even the imitation of a smile about his face. Lady Innisfail gave a laugh, and turned quickly to Miss Avon. “My husband will be delighted to meet you, my dear,” said she. “He is certain to know your father.” Harold watched Lord Innisfail shaking hands with Miss Avon at the side of the billiard table, while his father bent down to make another stroke. When the stroke was played he saw his father straighten himself and look toward Miss Avon. The look was a long one and an interested one. Then the girl disappeared with Lady Innisfail, and the look that Lord Fotheringay cast at his son was a short one, but it was quite as intelligible to that soft as the long look at Miss Avon had been to him. Harold went slowly and in a singularly contemplative mood to his bedroom, whence he emerged in a space, wearing a smoking-jacket and carrying a pipe and tobacco pouch. The smoking-jackets that glowed through the hall towards the last hour of the day at Castle Innisfail were a dream of beauty. Lady Innisfail had given orders to have a variety of sandwiches and other delicacies brought to the hall for those of her guests who had attended the festivities at Ballycruiskeen; and when Harold found his way downstairs, he perceived in a moment that only a few of the feeble ones of the house-party—the fishermen who had touches of rheumatism and the young women who cherished their complexions—were absent from the hall. He also noticed that his father was seated by the side of Beatrice Avon and that he was succeeding in making himself interesting to her. He knew that his father generally succeeded in making himself interesting to women. In another part of the hall Lady Innisfail was succeeding in making herself interesting to some of the men. She also was accustomed to meet with success in this direction. She was describing to such as had contrived to escape the walk to Ballycruiskeen, the inexhaustibly romantic charm of the scene on the Curragh while the natives were dancing, and the descriptions certainly were not deficient in colour. The men listened to her with such an aspect of being enthralled, she felt certain that they were full of regret that they had failed to witness the dance. It so happened, however, that the result of her account of the scene was to lead those of her audience who had remained at the Castle, to congratulate themselves upon a lucky escape. And all this time, Harold noticed that his father was making himself interesting to Beatrice Avon. The best way for any man to make himself interesting to a woman is to show himself interested in her. He knew that his father was well aware of this fact, and that he was getting Beatrice Avon to tell him all about herself. But when Lady Innisfail reached the final situation in her dramatic account of the dance, and hurried her listeners to the brink of the cliff—when she reproduced in a soprano that was still vibratory, the cry that had sounded through the mist—when she pointed to Miss Avon in telling of the white figure that had emerged from the mist—(Lady Innisfail did not think it necessary to allude to Helen Craven, who had gone to bed)—the auditors’ interest was real and not simulated. They looked at the white figure as Lady Innisfail pointed to her, and their interest was genuine. They could at least appreciate this element of the evening’s entertainment, and as they glanced at Harold, who was eating a number of sandwiches in a self-satisfied way, they thought that they might safely assume that he was the luckiest of the dramatis personae of the comedy—or was it a tragedy?—described by Lady Innisfail. And all this time Harold was noticing that his father, by increasing his interest in Beatrice, was making himself additionally interesting to her. But the judge had also—at the intervals between his Homeric nods—been noticing the living things around him. He put aside his glass and its straw—he had been toying with it all the evening, though the liquid that mounted by capillary attraction up the tube was something noisome, without a trace of alcohol—and seated himself on the other side of the girl. He assured her that he had known her father. Lord Fotheringay did not believe him; but this was not to the point, and he knew it. What was to the point was the fact that the judge understood the elements of the art of interesting a girl almost as fully as Lord Fotheringay did, without having quite made it the serious business of his life. The result was that Miss Avon was soon telling the judge all about herself—this was what the judge professed to be the most anxious to hear—and Lord Fotheringay lit a cigar. He felt somewhat bitterly on the subject of the judge’s intrusion. But the feeling did not last for long. He reflected upon the circumstance that Miss Avon could never have heard that he himself was a very wicked man. He knew that the interest that attaches to a man with a reputation for being very wicked is such as need fear no rival. He felt that should his power to interest a young woman ever be jeopardized, he could still fall back upon his bad character and be certain to attract her. CHAPTER XVII.—ON PROVIDENCE AS A MATCH-MAKER. O F 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.”

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