The next day Beatrice and her father returned to their cottage at the other side of the lough.
CHAPTER XXV.—ON THE SOCIAL VALUE OF THE REPROBATE.
SOMETHING remarkable had occurred. Lord Fotheringay had been for a fortnight under one roof without disgracing himself.
The charitable people said he was reforming.
The others said he was aging rapidly.
The fact remained the same, however: he had been a fortnight at the Castle and he had not yet disgraced himself.
Mrs. Burgoyne congratulated Lady Innisfail upon this remarkable occurrence, and Lady Innisfail began to hope that it might get talked about. If her autumn party at Castle Innisfail were to be talked about in connection with the reform of Lord Fotheringay, much more interest would be attached to the party and the Castle than would be the result of the publication of the statistics of a gigantic shoot. Gigantic shoots did undoubtedly take place on the Innisfail Irish property, but they invariably took place before the arrival of Lord Innisfail and his guests, and the statistics were, for obvious reasons, not published. They only leaked out now and again.
The most commonplace people might enjoy the reputation attaching to the careful preservation and the indiscriminate slaughter of game; but Lady Innisfail knew that the distinction accruing from a connection with a social scandal of a really high order, or with a great social reform—either as regards a hardened reprobate or an afternoon toilet—was something much greater.