A whisper had gone round the table while dinner was in progress, that Miss Stafford had promised—some people said threatened—to recite something in the course of the evening. Miss Stafford was a highly-educated young woman. She spoke French, German, Italian and Spanish. This is only another way of saying that she could be uninteresting in four languages. In addition to the ordinary disqualifications of such young women, she recited a little—mostly poems about early childhood, involving a lisp and a pinafore. She wished to do duty as an object lesson of the possibility of combining with an exhaustive knowledge of mathematical formulæ, the strongest instincts of femininity. Mathematics and motherhood were not necessarily opposed to one another, her teachers had assured the world, through the medium of magazine articles. Formulæ and femininity went hand in hand, they endeavoured to prove, through the medium of Miss Stafford’s recitations; so she acquired the imaginary lisp of early childhood, and tore a pinafore to shreds in the course of fifteen stanzas.
It was generally understood among men that one of these recitations amply repaid a listener for a careful avoidance of the apartment where it took place.
The threat that had been whispered round the dinner-table formed an excuse for long tarrying in front of the coffee cups and Bénédictine.
“Boys,” at length said Lord Innisfail, endeavouring to put on an effective Irish brogue—he thought it was only due to Ireland to put on a month’s brogue. “Boys, we’ll face it like men. Shall it be said in the days to come that we ran away from a lisp and a pinafore?” Then suddenly remembering that Miss Stafford was his guest, he became grave. “Her father was my friend,” he said. “He rode straight. What’s the matter with the girl? If she does know all about the binomial-theorem and German philosophy, has she not some redeeming qualities? You needn’t tell me that there’s not some good in a young woman who commits to memory such stuff as that—that what’s its name—the little boy that’s run over by a ‘bus or something or other and that lisps in consequence about his pap-pa. No, you needn’t argue with me. It’s extremely kind of her to offer to recite, and I will stand up for her, confound her! And if anyone wants to come round with the Judge and me to the stables while she’s reciting, now’s the time. Will you take another glass of claret, Wynne?”
“No, thank you,” said Harold. “I’m off to the drawing-room.”
He followed the men who were straggling into the great square hall where a billiard table occupied an insignificant space. The skeleton of an ancient Irish elk formed a rather more conspicuous object in the hall, and was occasionally found handy for the disposal of hats, rugs, and overcoats.
“She is greatly interested in the Romeo and Juliet story,” remarked Edmund, strolling up to him.
“She—who?” asked Harold.
“The girl—the necessary girl. The—let us say, alternative. The—the handrail.”
“The handrail?”