“I knew it—yes, I suspected as much,” murmured the girl, shaking her head. “Oh, we must put a stop to it. You will help me, Mr. Airey?”
“I am always on the side of law and order,” said Mr. Airey. “A mother is a great responsibility, Miss Innisfail.”
Miss Innisfail smiled sadly, shook her head again, and fled to find another supporter against the latest frivolity of her mother.
When Edmund turned about from watching her, he saw that his friend Harold Wynne had gone off with some of the yachtsmen—for every day a yachting party as well as deep-sea-fishing, and salmon-fishing parties—shooting parties and even archæological parties were in the habit of setting-out from Castle Innisfail.
Was it possible that Harold intended spending the day aboard the cutter, Edmund asked himself.
Harold’s mood of the previous evening had been quite intelligible to him—he had confessed to Miss Craven that he understood and even sympathized with him. He was the man who was putting off the plunge as long as possible, he felt.
But he knew that that attitude, if prolonged, not only becomes ridiculous, but positively verges on the indecent. It is one thing to pause for a minute on the brink of the deep water, and quite another to remain shivering on the rock for half a day.
Harold Wynne wanted money in order to realize a legitimate ambition. But it so happened that he could not obtain that money unless by marrying Miss Craven—that was the situation of the moment. But instead of asking Miss Craven if she would have the goodness to marry him, he was wandering about the coast in an aimless way.
Lady Innisfail was the most finished artist in matchmaking that Edmund had ever met. So finished an artist was she that no one had ever ventured to suggest that she was a match-maker. As a matter of fact, her reputation lay in just the opposite direction. She was generally looked upon as a marrer of matches. This was how she had achieved some of her most brilliant successes. She was herself so fascinating that she attracted the nicest men to her side; but, somehow, instead of making love to her as they meant to do, they found themselves making love to the nice girls with whom she surrounded herself. When running upon the love-making track with her, she switched them on, so to speak, to the nice eligible girls, and they became engaged before they quite knew what had happened.
This was her art, Edmund knew, and he appreciated it as it deserved.