CHAPTER XXII.—ON THE WISDOM OP THE MATRONS.

LADY INNISFAIL made a confession to one of her guests—a certain Mrs. Burgoyne—who was always delighted to play the rôle of receiver of confessions. The date at which Lady Innisfail’s confession was made was three days after the arrival of Beatrice Avon at the Castle, and its subject was her own over-eagerness to secure a strange face for the entertainment of her guests.

“I thought that the romantic charm which would attach to that girl, who seemed to float up to us out of the mist—leaving her wonderful eyes out of the question altogether—would interest all my guests,” said she.

“And so it did, if I may speak for the guests,” said Mrs. Burgoyne. “Yes, we were all delighted for nearly an entire day.”

“I am glad that my aims were not wholly frustrated,” said Lady Innisfail. “But you see the condition we are all in at present.”

“I cannot deny it,” replied Mrs. Burgoyne, with a sigh. “My dear, a new face is almost as fascinating as a new religion.”

“More so to some people—generally men,” said Lady Innisfail. “But who could have imagined that a young thing like that—she has never been presented, she tells me—should turn us all topsy turvy?”

“She has a good deal in her favour,” remarked Mrs. Burgoyne. “She is fresh, her face is strange, she neither plays, sings, nor recites, and she is a marvellously patient listener.”

“That last comes through being the daughter of a literary man,” said Lady Innisfail. “The wives and daughters of poets and historians and the like are compelled to be patient listeners. They are allowed to do nothing else.”

“I dare say. Anyhow that girl has made the most of her time since she came among us.”

“She has. The worst of it is that no one could call her a flirt.”

“I suppose not. But what do you call a girl who is attractive to all men, and who makes all the men grumpy, except the one she is talking to?”

“I call her a—a clever girl,” replied Lady Innisfail. “Don’t we all aim at that sort of thing?”

“Perhaps we did—once,” said Mrs. Burgoyne, who was a year or two younger than her hostess. “I should hope that our aims are different now. We are too old, are we not?—you and I—for any man to insult us by making love to us.”

“A woman is never too old to be insulted, thank God,” said Lady Innisfail; and Mrs. Burgoyne’s laugh was not the laugh of a matron who is shocked.

“All the same,” added Lady Innisfail, “our pleasant party threatens to become a fiasco, simply because I was over-anxious to annex a new face. I had set my heart upon bringing Harold Wynne and Helen Craven together; but now they have become hopelessly good friends.”

“She is very kind to him.”

“Yes, that’s the worst of it; she is kind and he is indifferent—he treats her as if she were his favourite sister.”

“Are matters so bad as that?”

“Quite. But when the other girl is listening to what another man is saying to her, Harold Wynne’s face is a study. He is as clearly in love with the other girl as anything can be. That, old reprobate—his father—has his aims too—horrid old creature! Mr. Durdan has ceased to study the Irish question with a deep-sea cast of hooks in his hand: he spends some hours every morning devising plans for spending as many minutes by the side of Beatrice. I do believe that my dear husband would have fallen a victim too, if I did not keep dinning into his ears that Beatrice is the loveliest creature of our acquaintance. I lured him on to deny it, and now we quarrel about it every night.”

“I believe Lord Innisfail rather dislikes her,” said Mrs. Burgoyne.

“I’m convinced of it,” said Lady Innisfail. “But what annoys me most is the attitude of Mr. Airey. He professed to be Harold’s friend as well as Helen’s, and yet he insists on being so much with Beatrice that Harold will certainly be led on to the love-making point—”

“If he has not passed it already,” suggested Mrs. Burgoyne.

“If he has not passed it already; for I need scarcely tell you, my dear Phil, that a man does not make love to a girl for herself alone, but simply because other men make love to her.”

“Of course.”

“So that it is only natural that Harold should want to make love to Beatrice when he is led to believe that Edmund Airey wants to marry her.”

“The young fool! Why could he not restrain his desire until Mr. Airey has married her? But do you really think that Mr. Airey does want to marry her?”

“I believe that Harold Wynne believes so—that is enough for the present. Oh, no. You’ll not find me quite so anxious to annex a strange face another time.”

From the report of this confidential duologue it may possibly be perceived, first, that Lady Innisfail was a much better judge of the motives and impulses of men than Miss Craven was; and, secondly, that the presence of Beatrice at the Castle had produced a marked impression upon the company beneath its roof.

It was on the evening of the day after the confidential duologue just reported that there was an entertainment in the hall of the Castle. It took the form of tableaux arranged after well-known pictures, and there was certainly no lack of actors and actresses for the figures.

Mary Queen of Scots was, of course, led to execution, and Marie Antoinette, equally as a matter of course, appeared in her prison. Then Miss Stafford did her best to realize the rapt young woman in Mr. Sant’s “The Soul’s Awaking”—Miss Stafford was very wide awake indeed, some scoffer suggested; and Miss Innisfail looked extremely pretty—a hostess’s daughter invariably looks pretty—as “The Peacemaker” in Mr. Marcus Stone’s picture.

Beatrice Avon took no part in the tableaux—the other girls had not absolutely insisted on her appearing beside them on the stage that had been fitted up; they had an+ informal council together, Miss Craven being stage-manager, and they had come to the conclusion that they could get along very nicely without her assistance.

Some of them said that Beatrice preferred flirting with the men. However this may have been, the fact remained that Harold, when he had washed the paint off his face—he had been the ill-tempered lover, Miss Craven being the young woman with whom he was supposed to have quarrelled, requiring the interposition of a sweet Peacemaker in the person of Miss Innisfail—went round by a corridor to the back of the hall, and stood for a few minutes behind a ‘portiere that took the place of a door at one of the entrances. The hall was, of course, dimly lighted to make the contrast with the stage the greater, so that he could not see the features of the man who was sitting on the chair at the end of the row nearest the portiere; but the applause that greeted a reproduction of the picture of a monk shaving himself, having previously used no other soap than was supplied by a particular maker, had scarcely died away before Harold heard the voice of Edmund Airey say, in a low and earnest tone, to someone who was seated beside him, “I do hope that before you go away, you will let me know where you will next pitch your tent. I don’t want to lose sight of you.”

“If you wish I shall let you know when I learn it from my father,” was the reply that Harold heard, clearly spoken in the voice of Beatrice Avon.

Harold went back into the billowy folds of the tapestry curtain, and then into the corridor. The words that he had overheard had startled him. Not merely were the words spoken by Edmund Airey the same as he himself had employed a few days before to Beatrice, but her reply was practically the same as the reply which she had made to him.

When the last of the figurantes had disappeared from the stage, and when the buzz of congratulations was sounding through the hall, now fully lighted, Harold was nowhere to be seen.

Only a few of the most earnest of the smokers were still in the hall when, long past midnight, he appeared at the door leading to the outer hall or porch. His shoes were muddy and his shirt front was pulpy, for the night was a wet one.

He explained to his astonished friends that it was invariably the case that putting paint and other auxiliaries to “making up” on his face, brought on a headache, which he had learned by experience could only be banished by a long walk in the open air.

Well, he had just had such a walk.

He did not expect that his explanation would carry any weight with it; and the way he was looked at by his friends made him aware of the fact that, in giving them credit for more sense than to believe him, he was doing them no more than the merest justice.

No one who was present on his return placed the smallest amount of credence in his story. What many of them did believe was of no consequence.