Before the topic had been adequately discussed, Mr. Durdan and another man came up to remind Mr. Airey that he had given them his word to be of their party in the fishing boat, where they were accustomed to study the Irish question for some hours daily.
Mr. Airey protested that his promise had been wholly a conditional one. It had not been made on the assumption that the lough should be moaning like a Wagnerian trombone, and it could not be denied that such notes were being produced by the great rollers beneath the influence of a westerly wind.
Harold gave a little shrug to suggest to Beatrice that the matter was not one that concerned her or himself in the least, and that it might be as well if Mr. Airey and his friends were left to discuss it by themselves.
The shrug scarcely suggested all that he meant it to suggest, but in the course of a minute he was by the side of the girl a dozen yards away from the three men.
“I wonder if you chanced to tell Mr. Airey of the queer way you and I met,” she said in a moment.
“How could I have told any human being of that incident?” he cried. “Why do you ask me such a question?”
“He knows all about it—so much is certain,” said she. “Oh, yes, he gave me to understand so much—not with brutal directness, of course.”
“No, I should say not—brutal directness is not in his line,” said Harold.
“But the result is just the same as if he had been as direct as—as a girl.”
“As a girl?”