“I’ll try to remember.”
“Given, as scenic details, the ruin of a Castle on one side of the Lough, the ruin of a Castle on the other, and the names of the hereditary enemies, the story comes naturally—quite as naturally—not to say overmuch about it—as the story of the melodrama follows the sketch of the scenic effects in the theatre. The transition from Montague to Macnamara—from Capulet to Cashelderg is easy, and there you are.”
“And here we are,” laughed Miss Craven. “How delightful it is to be able to work out a legend in that way, is it not, Mr. Durdan?” and she turned to a man sitting at her left.
“It’s quite delightful, I’m sure,” said Mr. Durdan. “But Airey is only adapting the creed of his party to matters of everyday life. What people say about his party is that they make a phrase first and then look out for a policy to hang upon it. Government by phrase is what the country is compelled to submit to.”
Mr. Durdan was a prominent member of the Opposition.
CHAPTER V.—ON A PERILOUS CAUSEWAY.
MISS CRAVEN laughed and watched Mr. Airey searching for a reply beneath the frill of a Neapolitan ice. She did not mean that he should find one. Her aim was that he should talk about Harold Wynne. The dinner had reached its pianissimo passages, so to speak. It was dwindling away into the marrons glacés and fondants stage, so she had not much time left to her to find out if it was indeed with his friend Edmund Airey that Harold had disappeared every afternoon.
Edmund Airey knew what her aim was. He was a clever man, and he endeavoured to frustrate it. Ten minutes afterwards he was amazed to find that he had told her all that she wanted to know, and something over, for he had told her that Harold was at present greatly interested in the question of the advisability of a man’s entering public life by the perilous causeway—the phrase was Edmund Airey’s—of matrimony.