“As saith the Preacher,” remarked Mr. Airey, when Lord Fotheringay paused and shook his head so that another little scrap of caked powder escaped from the depths of one of the wrinkles of his forehead.
“The Preacher—what Preacher?” he asked.
“The Preacher who cried Vanitas Vanitatum,” said Edmund.
“He had gone on a tour with an Italian opera company,” said Lord Fotheringay, “and he had fallen foul of the basso. Airey, my boy, whatever you do, steer clear of a prima donna with a high soprano. It means thousands—thousands, and a precipitate flight at the last. You needn’t try a gift of paste—the finest productions of the Ormuz Gem Company—‘a Tiara for Thirty Shillings’—you know their advertisement—no, I’ve tried that. It was no use. The real thing she would have—Heavens above! Two thousand pounds for a trinket, and nothing to show for it, but a smashing of supper plates and a hurried flight. Ah, Airey, is it any wonder that I should make up my mind to live a quiet life with—I quite forget who was in my mind when I commenced this interesting conversation?”
“It makes no difference,” said Mr. Airey. “The principle is precisely the same. There is Miss Innisfail looking for someone, I must go to her.”
“A desperately proper girl,” said Lord Fotheringay. “As desperately proper as if she had once been desperately naughty. These proper girls know a vast deal. She scarcely speaks to me. Yes, she must know a lot.”
His remarks were lost upon Mr. Airey, for he had politely hurried to Miss Innisfail and was asking her if he could be of any assistance to her. But when Miss Innisfail replied that she was merely waiting for Brian, the boatman, who should have returned long ago from the other side of the lough, Mr. Airey did not return to Lord Fotheringay.
He had had enough of Lord Fotheringay for one afternoon, and he hoped that Lord Fotheringay would understand so much. He had long ago ceased to be amusing. As an addition to the house-party at the Castle he was unprofitable. He knew that Lady Innisfail was of this opinion, and he was well aware also that Lady Innisfail had not given him more than a general and very vague invitation to the Castle. He had simply come to the Castle in order to avoid the possibly disagreeable consequences of buying some thousands of pounds’ worth of diamonds—perhaps it would be more correct to say, diamonds costing some thousands of pounds, leaving worth out of the question—for a woman with a husband.
Airey knew that the philosophy of Lord Fotheringay was the philosophy of the maker of omelettes. No one has yet solved the problem of how to make omelettes without breaking eggs. Lord Fotheringay had broken a good many eggs in his day, and occasionally the result was that his share of the transaction was not the omelette but the broken shells. Occasionally, too, Edmund Airey was well aware, Lord Fotheringay had suffered more inconvenience than was involved in the mere fact of his being deprived of the comestible. His latest adventure. Airey thought, might be included among such experiences. He had fled to the brink of the ocean in order to avoid the vengeance of the Husband. “Here the pursuer can pursue no more,” was the line that was in Edmund Airey’s mind as he listened to the fragmentary account of the latest contretemps of the rheumatic butterfly.
Yes, he had had quite enough of Lord Fotheringay’s company. The announcement of his intention to marry Miss Avon had not made him more interesting in the eyes of Edmund Airey, though it might have done so in other people’s eyes—for a man who makes himself supremely ridiculous makes himself supremely interesting as well, in certain circles.