Lord Innisfail was a man of about fifty years of age. His wife was forty and looked twenty-five: their daughter was eighteen and looked twenty-four.
Edmund Airey, who was trying to amuse Miss Craven by burlesquing the romance of the Princess Fither, was the representative in Parlament of an English constituency. His father had been in business—some people said on the Stock Exchange, which would be just the opposite. He had, however, died leaving his son a considerable fortune extremely well invested—a fact which tended strongly against the Stock Exchange theory. His son showed no desire to go on the turf or to live within reach to the European gaming-table. If there was any truth in the Stock Exchange theory, this fact tended to weaken the doctrine of heredity.
He had never blustered on the subject of his independence of thought or action. He had attached himself unobtrusively to the Government party on entering Parlament, and he had never occasioned the Whips a moment’s anxiety during the three years that had elapsed since the date of his return. He was always found in the Government Lobby in a division, and he was thus regarded by the Ministers as an extremely conscientious man. This is only another way of saying that he was regarded by the Opposition as an extremely unscrupulous man.
His speeches were brief, but each of them contained a phrase which told against the Opposition. He was wise enough to refrain from introducing into any speech so doubtful an auxiliary as argument, in his attempts to convince the Opposition that they were in the wrong. He had the good sense to perceive early in his career that argument goes for nothing in the House of Commons, but that trusted Governments have been turned out of office by a phrase. This power of perception induced him to cultivate the art of phrase-making. His dexterity in this direction had now and again made the Opposition feel uncomfortable; and as making the Opposition feel uncomfortable embodies the whole science of successful party-government in England, it was generally assumed that, if the Opposition could only be kept out of power after the General Election, Edmund Airey would be rewarded by an Under-Secretaryship.
He was a year or two under forty, tall, slender, and so distinguished-looking that some people—they were not his friends—were accustomed to say that it was impossible that he could ever attain to political distinction.
He assured Miss Craven that, sitting in the stern sheets of the boat, idly rocking on the smooth swell that rolled through the Lough from the Atlantic, was by far the most profitable way of spending two hours of the afternoon. Miss Craven doubted if this was a fact. “Where did the profit come in except to the boatman?” she inquired.
Mr. Airey, who knew that Miss Craven was anxious to know if Harold had been of the profitable boating-party, had no idea of allowing his powers of travesty to be concealed by the account, for which the young woman was longing, of Harold and the topics upon which he had conversed. He assured her that it was eminently profitable for anyone interested in comparative mythology, to be made acquainted with the Irish equivalent to the Mantuan fable.
“Fable!” almost shrieked Miss Craven. “Mantuan fable! Do you mean to suggest that there never was a Romeo and Juliet?”
“On the contrary, I mean to say that there have been several,” said Mr. Airey. “They exist in all languages. I have come unexpectedly upon them in India, then in Japan, afterwards they turned up, with some delicate Maori variations, in New Zealand when I was there. I might have been prepared for them at such a place as this You know how the modern melodramas are made, Miss Craven?”
“I have read somewhere, but I forget. And you sat alone in the boat smoking, while the boatman droned out his stories?” remarked the young woman, refusing a cold entrée.