It was Fabian Scott who, being by his profession less of a free agent than any other member of my little circle of friends, fixed the date of their yearly visit. As soon as he made known to me the first day when he would be free, I summoned the rest, and not one of them had ever yet failed me. Fabian wrote to me this year, giving the fifteenth of August as the day on which the closing of the theatre at which he was playing would leave him free.
The news of the expected arrivals quickly reached the ears of Mrs. Ellmer, who came skipping along the garden towards me one morning about a week before the visit, and attacked me at once with much vivacity.
'Aha!' she began, 'and so we were to be left in ignorance of the gay doings, were we?'
'If you allude to the meeting of half a dozen old fogeys on the fifteenth, Mrs. Ellmer, I assure you I was coming to the cottage to tell you about it. But we shall be about as sportive as a gathering of the British Archæological Association, and as we shall be out on the moors all day, I am afraid you won't find the place much livelier than usual. I think,' I added, coming to the pith of the matter with some feeling of awkwardness, 'that you had better keep Miss Babiole more—more with you, while—while the gentlemen are here. Or—or if you would like a trip to the seaside we might see about a couple of weeks at Muchalls or Stonehaven, and that would give us an opportunity of—of having the cottage whitewashed, you know,' I finished up, with a sudden gleam of tardy inventive genius.
The fact was, I had begun to tingle at the thought of the merciless 'chaff'—as much worse to bear than slander as the stigma of fool is than that of rogue—which the importation of my fair tenants would bring down upon me. Besides, though my four visitors were all old friends, and very good fellows, yet a pretty face may work such Circe-like wonders, even in the best of us, that I thought it better that our bachelor loneliness should be, as before, untempered by the smiles of any woman lovelier than Janet. But Mrs. Ellmer, at my hesitating suggestion, grew rigid and haughty.
'Of course, Mr. Maude,' she said, 'if you wish now to make use of the cottage my daughter and I have done our best to keep in order for you, we shall be ready to pack up at any time. We can go to-morrow, if you like. I have no doubt that I shall be able to find an opening for the autumn season with some company.'
'No, no, no!' interrupted I emphatically and with some impatience, 'Pray do not think of such a thing. There is plenty of room in my own place for all my friends. My sole object in making the suggestion I did was to prevent your being pestered with the attentions of a lot of rough sportsmen, who, when they were tired of shooting, would find nothing better to do than to worry you and Miss Babiole to death. And you remember,' I ended, as a happy thought, 'how, when you came here, you insisted on privacy.'
'One may have too much even of such a good thing as one's own society,' said she, with an affected little laugh. 'I think I could bear a little attention now, with much equanimity, even from a sportsman who "could find nothing better to do." Of course, I could expect no more than that from gentlemen of such rank as your guests,' she added, rather venomously. 'But for a change even that might be acceptable.'
Good heavens! The woman would not understand me.
'But Babiole!' I suggested quietly.