He crossed the hall to where Lady Innisfail was seated. She was fanning herself and making sparkling replies to the inanities of Mr. Durdan, who stood beside her. She had been engaged in every dance, Harold knew, from the extra gravity of her daughter.
“What does he mean?” Miss Craven asked of Edmund Airey in a low—almost an anxious, tone.
“Mean? Why, to dance with Lady Innisfail. He is a man of determination.”
“What does he mean by that nonsense about the Banshee’s Cave?”
“Is it nonsense?”
“Of course it is. Does anyone suppose that the legend of the White Lady is anything but nonsense? Didn’t you ridicule it at dinner?”
“At dinner; oh, yes: but then you must remember that no one is altogether discreet at dinner. That cold entrée—the Russian salad—”
“A good many people are discreet neither at dinner nor after it.”
“Our friend Harold, for instance? Oh, I have every confidence in him. I know his mood. I have experienced it myself. I, too, have stood in a sculpturesque attitude and attire, on a rock overhanging a deep sea, and I have been at the point of dressing again without taking the plunge that I meant to take.”
“You mean that he—that he—oh, I don’t know what you mean.”