“Good heavens!” ejaculated Lady Dysart. “What can that be? Something must be happening to the steam-launch; it sounds as if it were in danger!”
“It’s more likely to be Hawkins playing the fool,” replied Lambert ill-temperedly. “I saw him on the launch with Miss Fitzpatrick just after we left the pier.”
Lady Dysart said nothing, but her expression changed with such dramatic swiftness from vivid alarm to disapproval, that her mental attitude was as evident as if she had spoken.
“Hawkins is very popular in Lismoyle,” observed Lambert, trepidly.
“That I can very well understand,” said Lady Dysart, opening her parasol with an abruptness that showed annoyance, “since he takes so much trouble to make himself agreeable to the Lismoyle young ladies.”
Another outburst of jerky, amateur whistles from the steam launch gave emphasis to the remark.
“Oh, the trouble’s a pleasure,” said Lambert acidly. “I hope the pleasure won’t be a trouble to the young ladies one of these days.”
“Why, what do you mean?” cried Lady Dysart, much interested.
“Oh, nothing,” said Lambert, with a laugh, “except that he’s been known to love and ride away before now.”
He had no particular object in lowering Hawkins in Lady Dysart’s eyes, beyond the fact that it was an outlet for his indignation at Francie’s behaviour in leaving him, her oldest friend, to go and make a common laughing-stock of herself with that young puppy, which was the form in which the position shaped itself in his angry mind. He almost decided to tell Lady Dysart the episode of the Limerick tobacconist’s daughter, when they saw Miss Hope-Drummond and Captain Cursiter coming up the shrubbery path towards them, and he was obliged to defer it to a better occasion.